


Into the White

by sodium_amytal



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-17 17:26:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1396312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodium_amytal/pseuds/sodium_amytal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Hope. The idea that the tide can be pushed back. A new life. A chance to do it all over.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>When Jesse suggests skipping town instead of killing Gale, Walt never imagined the two of them would end up living together in the snow-capped forest of New Hampshire under assumed identities. With no one to trust but each other, Walt and Jesse share a spark that opens up a whole new world of possibilities.</p><p>As the duo grow closer, Walt learns why he and Jesse keep coming together against all odds: natural, basic chemistry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~ Anatole France_

**1.**

Walt should have never opened that door.

It could have been anyone, really. Someone from his old life itching to settle a score. Someone like Gus—no, Gus wouldn't do it himself. He'd send Victor or Mike to show up at Walt's doorstep and put a bullet in his skull.

It could have been a lost hiker emerging from the cluster of trees surrounding Walt's new home, crunching snow under their boots. It could have been Ed making a surprise visit. It could have even been Jesse returning home because he forgot his keys.

But instead his mystery visitor is Hank Schrader, and in that moment Walt feels his world drop out from under him.

Because Hank knows.

Anger mounts on Hank's face until it seizes control of him. He takes a wild swing at Walt, but Walt sees it coming and manages to duck out of the way. Hank's on him quicker than he ought to be considering his injury—has it been that long?—and fists his hands in Walt's shirt. "You son of a bitch!" Hank growls, shoving them deeper into the cabin. "You lied to me—you lied to everybody! Marie, Skyler, even your own goddamn son!"

Hank keeps going, pouring out all the anger he's kept pent up for months. "I went to your fucking funeral! Marie cried her eyes out!" Walt doesn't fight back, just takes Hank's righteous fury and lets it sink in his gut like iron. He deserves this and more—so much more. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Cold air fills the cabin through the open door and combats the fire of Hank's rage. Walt feels the chill travel over his skin. His voice is rough and hoarse in his throat when he speaks. "Would you listen if I tried to explain?"

Hank scowls at him but lets him go, shoving Walt a little as he does. Walt takes that as a yes and smooths his hands over his shirt in an attempt to look put-together. How is he supposed to tell a story like this—a story about falling apart and repairing stronger at the broken places—and earn a modicum of understanding?

Walt shuts the door to keep the heat in and heads to the stove. "You want anything? Coffee? Tea?"

"I want the truth," Hank says.

Walt smirks to himself when his back's turned.  _You sure about that, Hank? The truth will blow your damn world off its hinges like an atomic bomb. You'll never have a good night's sleep again._

He busies himself by making a cup of hot chocolate, but he knows Hank sees this for what it is: a stalling tactic. "Are you wearing a wire?"

"A wire? Jesus, why would I—" Hank scrubs a hand over his face. "You were the last person I was expecting to find up here in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere."

The corner of Walt's mouth curves into a smile. "Who were you expecting?"

"Shit, I don't know." Walt hears a chair drag across the wooden floor. Hank grunts as he sits. "Some rich relative of yours or somethin'."

"How did you find me?"

"A whole bunch of shit just fell together. Like that iPad Junior got for his birthday. He said Sky got it for him, but, I don't know, something just seemed fishy. I found the box it came in. The 'from' address was a postal center right here in town. So I looked 'em up, called and asked about who sent it."

So Walt's gift to Junior ended up unraveling his lie. He huffs a tiny laugh. Poetic justice, he supposes. "And they just told you?"

"Eh, I had to lay on some of the ol' Schrader charm." Hank chuckles weakly. "But I got the address, thought I'd take a little road trip."

Walt wraps his hands around the warm mug. "Hell of a road trip just to track down a rich relative."

"If I didn't have my doubts about that, I wouldn't have come all the way out here. C'mon, you know the kind of gifts relatives send down: gift cards, money, real impersonal stuff. Cheap, too. But an iPad? That's high-end. Jesus, if Marie's folks sent me shit like that for my birthday maybe I'd go see 'em more." He forces out a laugh.

Walt sips his cocoa and swallows back the fear building in his throat.

Hank continues, "Then after Skyler's birthday Marie tells me she's sportin' a real fancy necklace. What was that, sapphire?" Walt nods. "Well, Marie sure as hell didn't give it to her. She couldn't get anything outta Sky about the necklace. She claimed she bought it as a birthday present for herself." He shrugs. "I mean, hey, she's got the money, right? Why the hell not. But I guess it just got me thinkin', and somethin' just wasn't sitting right."

Walt measures each word with care. "The most logical explanation would be they were presents from Gretchen and Elliott."

"That's what I figured at first, but why wouldn't they just come out and say that?"

Walt takes his mug and sits across from Hank at the makeshift table against the far wall. Hank goes silent as he surveys Walt's new place, perhaps searching for signs of wrong-doing on Walt's part. The cabin isn't decorated with anything feminine, no ladies' shoes tucked under the bed or dresses slung over a chair. If Hank's looking for evidence of an affair, well, he's looking for the wrong things. Walt can only imagine the thoughts running through Hank's mind right now, what he might be thinking and how far it is from the truth.

Hank chuckles. "You a hunter now?"

Walt follows Hank's line of sight to the deer head mounted on the wall facing the door. "No, no, it, uh, it came with the place." Walt's old Heisenberg hat—how those days seem like a distant memory now—is perched atop the deer's head. "The hat was my contribution to the décor," he says with a lilt of a smile. It was actually Jesse's idea, but Hank's barely adjusting to the idea of Walt being alive and living in the snow-capped forest of New Hampshire. Best not introduce the fact that Walt's rooming with Jesse just yet.

Walt clears his throat. "What—what were you going to do if it really was a rich relative who lived here?"

"Just pretend I was lost, ask for directions," Hank says. "I'd have my answer. I just wanted to see for myself, 'cause something didn't feel right."

"You know what they say about curiousity."

Hank laughs, but there's no joy. "Ain't that the truth."

Hank's small-talk is just a way to prolong the inevitable. But no more bullshit. Walt takes another sip of hot chocolate. "If you want to know why I'm here, I want immunity for everything I tell you."

Hank shakes his head in despair. "Aw, Jesus, Walt. I'm not here as a DEA agent. I'm here as a friend who just wants answers."

"And what if after you get those answers you're no longer a friend? The information that I have will change your entire life."

Hank stares at him with cold eyes. "What did you do, Walter? What could be so godawful that you'd pretend to be dead to get away from it?"

Walt feels the panicked thump of his heart in his chest. He tries to calm himself with the comfort of logic: Hank didn't come here expecting to find Walt. Now that he has, his world's been blown off its hinges; Hank hungers for answers in a starving-man-near-a-buffet way. Anything Walt says here is off the record.

This is it. This is the moment his life unravels—again. "It all started when I got my diagnosis..."

#

Green, yellow, and red strobe lights bend over the planes of Jesse's face as he stares at Walt. They're holding a clandestine meeting in the abandoned laser tag Saul's still trying to sell. The whole atmosphere is unsettling and creepy, made worse by the fact that they're discussing cold-blooded murder in a place where once upon a time kids and teenagers ran around shooting each other with plastic guns. How times have changed.

"Yo, Mr. White?"

Walt blinks to attention. "Hm?"

"Were you even listening to me?"

"Sorry, I—do you ever wonder why you always hear people say 'cold-blooded murder,' but never 'warm-blooded murder'?" He chuckles, but it's weak. "What's with that?"

Walt's pretty well-acquainted with the look Jesse's giving him right now; it's the "you're a fucking idiot" look that Walt created solely for Jesse. Odd to be on the other side for once.

"Great. I can see my time means absolutely jack shit to you." Jesse makes a disgusted noise and turns away.

Walt tugs Jesse back by his elbow before he can leave. "Wait, wait. Just—I'm sorry. I got distracted. You were saying?"

Jesse eyes him for a moment, as if debating whether repeating himself will be worth the effort. "Well, here's the Cliff Notes: We're not offin' Gale."

"'We'? I don't get veto power over your less-than-stellar ideas?"

Jesse's eyes widen, a multitude of colors reflected his whites. "'Veto power'? We're talking about fuckin' killin' a dude, not passing a bill!" Jesse hisses through his teeth, because Saul's standing in the corner. It's not like there's proof that Saul isn't eavesdropping, especially after Mike threatened him to give up Jesse's whereabouts.

"I don't want to do it any more than you do," Walt says, "but what choice do we have? When it comes down to you and me versus him? I'm sorry—I'm truly sorry, but it's gonna be him."

Jesse shakes his head, pushes a hand through his hair. "There's gotta be some other way. What if—what if we didn't have to kill anybody?"

"You think Gus will just conveniently decide not to murder me the first chance he gets?"

"He will if he can't find you."

Walt lifts an eyebrow, urging Jesse to continue.

"We could just hit the road and disappear. You take your family and go one direction, I'll go in the other. You still got money, right?"

"But it's not enough. Not enough to make all of this worth it."

"Yeah, well, tough shit. Is all the money really worth it if you have to kill innocent people?"

Deep down, Walt admires Jesse's childlike simplicity, the way he sees things like Walt used to before the world crashed down around them. Walt knows killing Gale to secure his own place as Gus' cook is deplorable, but the idea of murder-for-personal-gain doesn't weigh on his soul as much as it used to. The ghosts don't haunt him much anymore. His inner demons no longer visit him at night.

And maybe that's how he knows it's time to get out. Before there's nothing left of his soul.

Walt scratches his chin. "So you want to run."

"It's not 'running' so much as 'cutting your losses.'"

"Skyler would never—" Walt gives an aborted head shake. "They would never be okay with uprooting their entire lives because of my mistakes."

"You never know."

"What about you? You have Andrea and Brock..."

Jesse shrugs. "I don't wanna put them in danger. I could—I could leave if I had to. I mean, c'mon, I was gonna sell her meth 'til I found out she had a kid." He laughs a humorless, broken sound. "They'd be better off without me."

That one cleaves right through Walt's heart, and he stares at the look of resigned self-loathing on Jesse's face. This is not right. Jesse honestly believes that nobody could ever love him.

Walt swallows, risks a hand on Jesse's shoulder. Jesse doesn't shrug away from the touch. "Jesse, no one could ever be harmed by having you in their life," Walt says, and he means it. Jesse is the light that shines through Walt's darkness and makes him feel a little more human. Walt is the poison, slowly killing everyone around him just like the cancer inside his own body.

Jesse's eyes go wide and wet, like no one's ever told him he's worth a damn before. And maybe they haven't. It's always been Walt and Jesse, sanding down each other's rough edges into something that fits together like an imperfect puzzle.

Jesse clears his throat and looks away, chagrined by his display of emotion. "Just, um, just ask Saul if he knows anybody that can make the whole new identity thing happen. Then I guess we can go from there."

Walt glances over at Saul, who's still acting as if he's not listening, then back to Jesse. He tries to bite down on the swell of hope in his chest before it can grow. The suggestion that there's a bloodless way out of this has to be too good to be true.

But it pokes at his brain like a song on repeat. Hope. The idea that the tide can be pushed back. A new life. A chance to do it all over.

And that's how it starts. Walt learns Saul does indeed "know a guy" who can make anyone disappear and start anew. The only remaining obstacle in his path is convincing Skyler and Walt Junior and Holly to come along with him. Which totally isn't going to be as hard as it sounds.

"Are you out of your mind?" Skyler hisses after he's told her the plan later that afternoon. "You want us to just pick up everything and go with you to God knows where for how long? Forever?"

Walt puts on his best innocent face, but it's a little rusty. "Well, yes."

"Give me one good reason why."

"Because you're my family."

Skyler scoffs. "A family you have continuously lied to and deceived for months. A family you have put through hell to build your little empire. And now you want to hurt us more, all so you can feel like this wasn't a big fat waste of time?"

Walt doesn't say anything, pinned under the truth of her words.

"I have to launder your money, something you made a necessity by bringing in more money than we could ever use in a lifetime. And I have family here. For God's sake, what would Hank and Marie think if we just disappeared?"

Walt hasn't considered that angle yet. Hank's clout with the DEA does not make this less troublesome. "Maybe with some careful editing we could, I don't know, tell them something that would make them understand. Skyler, I am at my wit's end here—"

She lifts an eyebrow. "I thought we were in so much danger that telling anyone anything would put them at risk too."

"I'm the one in danger, but if—"

"So you want us to uproot our lives and come with you for, what, company?"

That would have sounded awful coming out of Walt's mouth; he's glad she said it first.

Skyler glares at him. "You could have told me you had cancer when you first got your diagnosis. We could've come up with a way to make money together. But, no, you chose to go this route and hide everything from me, from your son, from everyone who cares about you. We're not going with you, Walt. Our lives would be so much easier if you just disappeared."

Something in Walt's chest snuffs out like the flame of a candle bowing to a strong gust. Skyler is right. The mess he's made of everything proves it; he's just too damn stubborn and blind to see it until it's spelled out for him. The consequences of his choices have rippled outward like a nuclear blast and taken everyone else down with him.

Walt tries one last lame attempt to play to her sympathies. "What—what about Junior? He'll want to know what happened to his father. And why he didn't get a say in the matter."

Skyler shrugs. "I can handle him; he already hates me. But I think he'll get over it after a while. We all will. When you keep coming back into our lives, it's like reopening a wound, and it's so much harder to move on."

Walt feels awareness trickle through his veins. If he runs, he's going to be completely, utterly alone. "If I disappear, what's stopping these people from going through my family to get to me? Nothing!"

"Unless someone else gets to you first."

That stops him. "What—what are you saying?"

"If they think you're dead, they'll leave you—and us—alone," Skyler says pointedly.

Together, Walt and Skyler hatch a plan: faking Walt's death. No one would look too closely—the death of a fifty-year-old cancer patient tends not to raise eyebrows. He's not proud of this, but at least Skyler and Walter Junior are in on the lie. He tells Junior he's mixed up in a sticky situation and needs to disappear to keep his family safe. But he leaves Hank and Marie and everyone else in the dark, because when you fake your death you don't let too many people in on the hoax.

It takes a shockingly short time to set up. He arms Skyler with the contact information for one of Saul's guys who can arrange the whole thing. Walt doesn't doubt that Skyler will call; it's no coincidence she created a plan in which she gets to keep her children safe  _and_  metaphorically kill Walt.

Walt doesn't stick around for his own funeral. Some people want to see the emotional impact their lives had on the people around them, and if this wasn't Walt's own doing he'd want to know too. Excised from everything he's ever known, he calls Jesse, and they meet with their bags packed on a road just outside of town.


	2. Chapter 2

Walt watches Hank's face and takes in every twitch of a frown and crease of brow. "You did all this to get out of a drug ring operated by Gustavo Fring—the chicken guy?"

"It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that," Walt argues. "He has an underground lab built beneath an industrial-sized laundromat."

Hank stares at him.

"I could give you directions." Walt's really not making a case for "less ridiculous."

Hank runs a hand over his scalp. "Just—okay, so this Gale Boetticher was, what, in line to replace you as top cook?"

" _Only_  cook. Once Gale knew my formula he could take over the lab himself. Gus felt that Jesse and I were too much of a risk."

Hank stares at nothing in particular for a few moments. Then: "This is all 'cause I took you on that meth lab bust, isn't it?"

Walt sighs. "Don't blame yourself, Hank."

"Aw, Jesus." Hank buries his head in his hands.

"That wasn't a 'yes.'"

"Wasn't a no either."

Walt sips his cocoa and gives Hank all the time he needs to put his brain back together.

"So, what happened to Pinkman?"

"I'm getting to that," Walt warns him, setting the mug on the table. "I'm not looking forward to telling you the rest of the story."

Hank's eyes bulge in horror. "What the—It gets  _worse_  than you cooking meth?" Walt feels bad for Hank; it's not every day you learn that everything you know about someone is completely, hilariously wrong.

"Depends on your definition of 'worse.'"

"Oh God," Hank moans.

"So after we arrived at Ed's home base..."

#

It takes Ed a couple days to orchestrate everything. In the meantime, Walt and Jesse stay at Ed's headquarters in a room downstairs that's only slightly more welcoming than a jail cell. Most of the time Jesse lies on one of the beds, and Walt knows he's asleep when Jesse starts mumbling nonsensical strings of words.

One afternoon Jesse asks a question that hits Walt square in the chest: "I guess your family didn't go for it, huh?"

Walt looks over at where Jesse's curled up on the bed with his back facing Walt. "If they did, they'd be here."

Jesse makes a noise of acknowledgement that sounds sad somehow. "Sorry," he says, like it's his fault. "So, did you just up and leave or what?"

"I had them fake my death."

"Jesus."

"It makes sense." In fucking Bizarro-World, maybe. "With my cancer... It's not exactly a shock."

"I just told Andrea I had to go away for a while. She understood. I gave my parents back the house. They didn't ask too many questions." Jesse's voice is laced with bitterness around that last part.

Walt wishes he knew what to say to alleviate Jesse's pain. How must it hurt to feel like your own parents don't care whether you live or die? That they love their other son more than you? "At least you have a door open in case you decide to come back," Walt says, and maybe there's some bitterness there too. "That's good."

Jesse makes a non-committal grunt. "Where do you wanna go? I mean, if you got to choose."

Walt hasn't thought about it; he's had enough fantasies that won't come true to last a lifetime. "I don't know. I suppose it doesn't matter much."

"Bullshit," Jesse huffs out, but there's a smile in his voice. "Of course you care. You're gonna be livin' somewhere for the rest of your life and you don't even wonder what it'll be like?"

Walt tries to ignore the "rest of your life" part. "Sure, everyone thinks about nice, relaxing places like a beach or something by the sea. But odds are you're going to get dumped in a shithole with no indoor plumbing and absolutely nothing worth looking at."

"Wow, could you be more cynical?" It's just Jesse's usual flippant teasing, but this particular jab opens the floodgates.

"Jesse, let me tell you something. I have struggled my entire life and been left wanting. I took a meager check of five thousand dollars from a company who went on to make billions of dollars on my research. I have simultaneously worked two low-paying jobs just to provide my family with a decent roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and food in their mouths. All of which would be bearable if not for a cancer diagnosis that threatened to leave me and my family bankrupt, with nothing to show for after I'm gone. And even after partaking in the manufacture of illegal drugs, I still have to struggle just to keep myself and my family alive. So, no, Jesse, I could not be more cynical. I have reached the peak of cynicism and become its king."

"Sounds like your life sucks," Jesse says simply. "Good thing you get to start over, huh?"

An interesting way to see things. What would Walt do with a chance to start his life anew? Would he take more risks, challenge himself to do better? Or would he settle into the same stagnant habits and routine that sentenced him to a life of mediocrity?

"What about you?" Walt asks. "Where would you like to go?"

"Somewhere totally different than here." Jesse rolls over on his other side so he can tilt his head and look at Walt. "Like, Alaska or New York or Utah or Minnesota. Someplace with a lot of snow."

Walt makes a face. "Minnesota?"

Jesse huffs an exasperated laugh. "Whatever, man. You don't have to like it. You're not goin' with me." After a moment or two of silence, he murmurs, "For real though, I'm gonna miss havin' you around. I mean, yeah, you're, like, the world's biggest pain in my ass, but"—he shrugs—"I dunno..."

Walt finds himself smiling despite the clumsiness of Jesse's words. "I don't know if it's been  _fun_ , but...it's been something."

"Wow, that's deep."

Yeah, Walt thinks as he settles back against his own bed, he's gonna miss this.

#

Ed comes downstairs when the early morning light's glowing through the window. Walt hasn't been able to turn his brain off and sleep when his world's changing like this. Jesse wakes up at the sound of Ed's heavy boots against the floor. Light sleeper.

"Are you ready to go?" Ed asks, staring straight at Walt.

Walt's breath catches in his throat. "I suppose I am. Is—is everything ready for Jesse?"

Ed shakes his head. "He's gonna take another day or two." Walt glances at Jesse as if on instinct. "Don't worry; he's in good hands. Now are you comin' or not?"

The words leave Walt's mouth before he can stop them. "Could he—could Jesse come with me? Would that be too difficult for you to arrange?"

Jesse's head whirls around to look at Walt, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. "What?"

Ed eyes the two of them. "Difficult? That'd make my job a hell of a lot easier." Jesse's face must not be very encouraging, because Ed says, "Why don't I give you a couple minutes to talk this out?" before exiting the room and giving them their privacy.

Jesse's staring pretty intently at Walt's mouth before his gaze flicks up to the rest of his face. "Are you serious? You wanna live with me?"

He can't blame Jesse for being skeptical; it sounds pretty fucking crazy when he hears it out loud. They create nothing but chaos together, but maybe in the right environment they could make something worth saving. Something that feels like home. "It's better than being in a strange place all alone, isn't it? Someone familiar to come home to..."

"This sounds hella gay, Mr. White," Jesse says, but there's no heat to it. He looks like he's considering the idea, like he wants this just as much as Walt does. "I mean, what, would we have to do everything together?"

Walt shakes his head. "Only if you wanted to." Maybe it would be like those four days they spent in the RV, sans most of the arguing and sweating and freezing and frustration with each other. So, on second thought, maybe not like that at all. But the possibility of living with Jesse is enticing enough that Walt wants it. Living alone with his thoughts would be too much to bear.

Jesse rubs a hand over his face, plucks at his lower lip; Walt wants to hear the thoughts in his head. "I guess it wouldn't suck too bad...but what if, like, I make friends and wanna let them hang at my place? How do I explain my creepy old roommate?"

Walt frowns at the "creepy old roommate" bit. "I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to arrange some sort of system. Just imagine it as living in a dorm and sharing your space with someone else."

"No offense, Mr. White, but I really doubt livin' with you would be as fun as having a roommate in college."

"I can be fun," Walt says with an unreasonable amount of offense.

Jesse chuckles. "Yeah, okay, sure." His smile halts on his face and turns downward, as if he's thought of something morbid and terrible. When he looks at Walt again, his eyes are sadder somehow. "Alright, yeah, why not? I'll go with you."

Walt's not sure if Jesse's doing this out of pity or a genuine desire for his company, but, whatever, he'll take it.

#

The drive to their new home is the most uncomfortable thing Walt's ever experienced in his life—even counting the time he rode inside the trunk of a car. Walt finds it hard to get comfortable jammed into the cylinder of an old cement truck. Jesse's crammed alongside him with their luggage. At some point during the trip, Walt wakes up with his head lolled on Jesse's shoulder. The weirdest part is how Jesse doesn't seem to mind.

Walt doesn't notice the temperature dropping lower and lower until he shivers and wraps his arms around himself for warmth. Jesse moves in closer until he's tucked up alongside Walt. "You cold?"

Walt resists the urge to say something sarcastic.

Jesse unzips the bag next to him and pulls out a hoodie—black with an ornate gold pattern. He unfolds it as he hands it to Walt. "Here."

Walt doesn't care how ridiculous this thing looks on him. He sticks his arms inside the sleeves and zips up, thankful for the extra layer of heat.

"Yeah, suddenly my over-sized hoodies and twenty layers of clothes aren't so silly now, huh?" Jesse digs out a beanie and drops it in Walt's lap. "You might need this too. Doesn't heat escape off the top of your head or whatever?"

Walt smiles. "You were paying attention," he says, tugging the cap over his head.

Jesse's shy little grin is beautiful enough for framing.

Walt doesn't know how long the drive takes: three hours or thirteen. But eventually the truck slows to a stop. He hears the driver's door open and shut, then boots crunching on gravel—or snow, since Walt's still a bit cold.

Ed lets them out. "Welcome to New Hampshire."

Walt stumbles out onto the snow and looks around in awe at the vast property before him. The snowy hills and trees seem to stretch out for miles. There's a modest, one-story cabin up ahead that he assumes is their new home. Behind the house, a gate blocks off what appears to be a road. He hopes they're not too far from civilization. It would be nice to go into town every once in a while for supplies.

One word: solitude. They're either going to end up killing each other or become great friends.

"Looks like you got what you wanted, Jesse," Walt says quietly.

"Yeah, maybe."

Ed shows them inside the cabin, which is a lot roomier than Walt imagined it would be. The furniture is pretty basic and sparse—a bed, some small tables, a couple chairs, even a TV—but Walt figures they can make do until later. Jesse might have a problem with the size of the bed. Maybe Walt can sleep on the floor tonight.

"If you leave out that gate there's a road that'll take you into town," Ed explains. "It's a bit of a walk, though."

Jesse's eyes light up at the prospect. "Sweet." He drops his bags at the foot of the bed and sits on the edge of the mattress.

Ed continues, "Good luck gettin' a signal on the TV here. I hope you brought DVDs."

Jesse's excitedly digging through one of his duffel bags. He pulls out a video game console and starts setting it up. Ah, youth.

"Internet and cell phone signals are gonna be spotty at best," Ed says, like he's giving them the grand tour of an extravagant hotel. "You better like each other's company, 'cause until you get a good haul of supplies that's all you got."

The permanescence of this decision is starting to seep in. Walt has sentenced himself to the rest of his life in close quarters with Jesse.

He really doesn't make the best decisions. He's firing everyone in charge of his life.

"We'll—we'll be alright," he manages. "Thanks."

The cabin is amazingly clean and dust-free for a place that doesn't look like it's been lived in for about a year. There aren't any rodents, possum, or other critters hiding inside. The bathroom fan is stupidly loud, but Walt supposes that's better than the alternative. Too much quiet would drive him crazy.

Walt throws a log into the furnace after Ed leaves. Jesse's managed to set up the Xbox already. "Hey, sweet, it actually works!"

The crackle of the fire in the furnace soothes Walt's nerves a bit. He slides the duffel bag containing the rest of his cash underneath the bed. He's about to start unpacking their paltry rations when Jesse hops up from the floor and takes the cans from him. "I got it, Mr. White. Just chill for a bit. Take a nap or somethin'."

Walt decides to do just that, and it doesn't take long for him to succumb to exhaustion and fall asleep.

#

Walt wakes up to a thick cloak of blackness outside the windows. His eyes ache, his body craving sleep. He could sleep for months, slowly recuperating from the past year that's left him worn and weary. The fireplace is extinguished. The only light inside comes from the TV flickering while Jesse plays some shoot-'em-up game.

Walt sits up, attempting to get out of bed. "Yo, there's soup on the stove if you want it," Jesse says, his eyes never leaving the screen. He's wearing different clothes now—a pair of pajama pants and a bulky hoodie. His hair looks damp.

Walt makes a sound of appreciation in his throat and heats up the soup.

After dinner, Walt drags himself into the bathroom for a shower, hurrying so he can get back to sleep. But the hot water feels good against his skin, so he lingers under the spray a little longer than he'd like.

The cabin's gone dark when he's finished with the shower. Jesse throws a thick, faded quilt over the bed. "There's no springs pokin' out or anything, is there?" Jesse asks him.

"Not on my side."

Jesse lifts an eyebrow. "We got sides? This is kinda small."

"It could fit two," Walt says. "You don't move around a lot when you sleep, do you?"

"How would I know?"

Walt nods, conceding the point. The rational side of him says to let Jesse have the bed tonight, but the selfish part craves the body heat and presence of another person.

As usual, Walt's selfish side wins. "Why don't we see if we'll fit?" He tips his chin in the direction of the bed. "Get in."

Jesse gives this a moment of careful consideration before crawling onto the bed. He presses himself along the wall. Walt joins him on the other side, and there's a small pocket of space between them that makes this much less awkward. Jesse rolls onto his side. "Okay, yeah, this—this is cool. Much better than sleeping on the floor."

"The extra body heat will be good," Walt says. "At least until we buy a heater."

Jesse wriggles his way underneath the blankets. He's lying with his back facing Walt, which Walt appreciates. It's a relief not to have eyes on him now, to gaze up at the ceiling and maybe let a few tears escape, because, holy shit, what the hell was he thinking? He's thousands of miles away from his family—the entire reason he started cooking in the first place. He might as well be dead, because he can't contact Skyler or Junior unless he wants to put his life and theirs in danger.

Jesse—the fragile, slender loud-mouth currently slumbering beside him—is all Walt has now.

#

Walt learns that Jesse is a cuddly sleeper, because he wakes up with sunlight blaring in through the windows and Jesse's arms tangled around him. His head's lying on Walt's chest, the hard line of his body pressed against Walt's own. It's sort of adorable, if Walt were in the habit of using words like "adorable." But he isn't, so he wouldn't describe it that way. Nope. Not at all.

Jesse looks more serene than Walt's ever seen him before. He wonders what Jesse might be dreaming about, what thoughts give him comfort. Could this be the kind of life Jesse wanted all along?

Walt can't resist the urge to thread his fingers through Jesse's hair. Jesse stirs, and Walt immediately draws his hand away like it's on fire. Jesse makes a throaty sound as he stretches awake, then his eyes blink open. He meets Walt's gaze, sees the way he's sort of sprawled over him.

The way blood pools beneath Jesse's cheeks is just priceless. "Oh...uh, sorry." Jesse extricates his limbs from Walt's person. He tucks his arms against his sides so there will be no more inappropriate touching.

"Do you always climb the nearest body in your sleep?" Walt would definitely remember if Jesse had cuddled with him during their overnight stints in the RV. Maybe it's a body heat thing; Jesse's not exactly packed with muscle to keep the cold out.

Jesse blushes even harder and kicks his way free of the blankets, stumbling out of bed. "You—uh, you want coffee?"

Walt smiles to himself.


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay, I'm sick of eatin' soup and canned junk," Jesse says on the third day, "and we're almost out of food, so we gotta go to the store."

Walt says nothing. His head is still buried in the pillow as it has been since this morning. He knows he should get up and do something, maybe make an effort to unpack his clothes, but he just  _can't_. There's no urgency anymore, no real desire to do anything but lie here.

Walt feels the bounce when Jesse drops onto the mattress. "C'mon, Mr. White. It's been three days. Don't you wanna go see what's outside those gates?"

Walt closes his eyes. "You go, Jesse."

"Are you sick or somethin'? I can pick up some medicine if you want."

Walt  _wants_  his old life back: before the cancer, before everything went so absymally wrong. His life wasn't perfect—if it were he wouldn't be here now–but it was infinitely better than being sequestered in a snowed-in cabin with nothing but the beat of his own heart and Jesse's sleep-talking to keep him company.

Jesse waits for Walt to say something, but when he doesn't Jesse grumbles out, "Fine, be a dick about it," before grabbing the keys off of the counter and leaving Walt utterly alone.

#

The silence is what Walt hates the most, especially at night. Jesse doesn't stir often or snore, so Walt's left with the near-deafening sound of silence and the ricochet of his thoughts inside his head. He's beginning to understand why Jesse plunged head-first into the false comfort of drug abuse after Jane died. What Walt would give to forget...

Sometimes Walt lies awake and watches the rise and fall of Jesse's chest in his sleep or the way his fingers curl in Walt's shirt. Occasionally Jesse will mumble nonsense like "Don't wet the water" or "sea monkey has my money."

For these brief little moments Walt doesn't feel so alone.

#

"I saw a bookstore last time I was in town," Jesse says, sitting on the edge of the bed as he pulls boots over his socked feet. "Thought I'd check it out. You wanna come?"

Walt turns over on his side and manages to say, "No."

"You sure? There's a frozen yogurt place across the street."

"The temperature's practically in the negative numbers. Why would I want frozen yogurt?"

Jesse sighs like Walt's being difficult. "Okay, fine, get a coffee or a cheeseburger. Whatever. Just do somethin' besides lyin' around in bed all day." There's a hint of venom in his voice.

"I don't want to."

Jesse huffs out an angry breath and stands up. "Hey, I don't wanna do everything around here like your damn maid, but you don't see me complaining."

Walt makes an aggrieved sound.

"Jesus, quit bein' such a little bitch! No, no, you're like—you're like a combination of bitches to make the world's biggest bitch! Like a bitch Transformer: Optimus Bitch!"

"Are you done?" Walt asks after a moment.

Jesse chokes on an appalled noise in his throat. "Done? Am I—The only thing I'm done with is your bullshit! Just because you wanna make my life miserable doesn't mean—"

And that's the thread that unravels the rage Walt's bottled up since this all started. "Oh, I'm making  _your_  life miserable?" he bellows, sitting up to focus the full scope of his wrath onto Jesse. "Because you had  _so_  much going for you before I came along!"

Jesse bites back with equal force. "Well, guess what, Mr. White: I never wanted any of this! I never wanted to cook crystal with you, but your old ass never gave me a choice! 'Cook with me or I turn you in,' remember?"

Walt vaguely remembers saying something to that effect.

"So enlighten me: how am I making your life miserable?"

"You made this necessary, Jesse!  _You_  went after those gang-bangers! If I hadn't followed you—"

"I didn't ask you to do shit for me! If you had just let them kill me you'd still be cookin'!"

Walt feels that one like a whip-crack to his chest, and the anger drops out of him. "Jesse..."

Jesse just shakes his head, moving for the door. "Since you're up, why don't you do the dishes?"

Walt grumbles a bevy of curses under his breath and gets out of bed after Jesse's gone.

#

It's been a week since they moved in to the cabin. Jesse's sitting cross-legged on the bed, spreading out a handful of brochures and pamphlets in the space between him and Walt. A bowl of hash browns is precariously balanced on his knee. His pajama pants are black with skulls engulfed in neon green flames. "So the library has all these ads for cool shit to do in town. Pick one," he says around a mouthful of potatoes.

Walt eyes the brochures like they might come alive and do something terrible to him. "Why?"

"Because we're gonna get out and do something today." Jesse doesn't seem to be taking no for an answer. He scoops in another forkful of hash browns and says, "So pick out a place you don't think is totally lame."

"We don't have a car," Walt reminds him. "You expect us to walk to these places?"

"It's called public transportation, yo."

Walt sighs and picks up the nearest brochure. "'Santa's Village?' Jesse, it's April. It says 'open May through December.'"

Jesse frowns. "Okay, put a pin in that, I guess." He hands Walt another pamphlet. "Look at that shit; it's a castle! How awesome is that?"

"'Open weekends only beginning on Mother's Day Weekend.'"

"God damn it."

The next brochure he reads is for an amusement park called Story Land. Walt is immediately skeptical of the name, because clearly an uncreative child was in charge of the nomenclature. That can't be a sign of anything promising. "I think this is for children, Jesse," Walt says, lifting an eyebrow.

"Not exclusively! There's gotta be something there for the parents, right? They don't just drop the kids off and leave." Jesse points to the list of rides. "Are you saying you're too old for the Buccaneer Pirate Ship?"

Walt gives him flat eyes. "That is exactly what I'm saying."

"You just don't know how to like things," Jesse says with a tragic shake of his head.

Walt decides not to argue with him. He surveys the other brochures. There's one for a shopping mall, which Walt refuses on principle. Another pamphlet advertises Crotched Mountain Ski and Ride, which, no, God no. He's not setting foot anywhere near a place with a name that dangerously close to genitalia. Orchards, golf courses, ski resorts, water parks, an arcade... It's too cold for any of this shit.

But he doesn't want to disappoint Jesse or come off like he's refusing to make an effort. It was Walt's idea to live together, so it's his responsibility to make sure they don't snap and murder each other. And if that means enduring an outing at some ridiculous location, well, Walt set himself up for this one.

"Why don't you show me around town?" Walt suggests. Jesse freezes, fork halfway raised to his mouth. "You know your way around, right?"

Jesse smiles like he's pleased by Walt's attitude adjustment. "Yeah, sorta. I mean, I can get us there and back."

#

"So, hey, you know there's actually a town called Sandwich somewhere around here?" Jesse says while they're trudging down the dirt road into town. A mass of trees surrounds both sides of the pathway, clumps of snow frozen on their branches. It's all picturesque, but Walt can't stop flashing back to the time he and Jesse hiked through the desert following the Tuco debacle. Only now it's freezing instead of sweltering.

"That means there's cop cars driving around that say 'Sandwich Police!'" Jesse laughs an airy sound Walt hasn't heard from him in ages. "Like, 'yo, you're under arrest for using low-fat mayonnaise.'"

Walt smiles; Jesse seems to have some sort of superpower for cheering him up today. He's currently wrapped up tight in one of Jesse's coats, because Walt's an idiot who didn't pack an extensive repertoire of winter clothes. About ninety percent of Jesse's wardrobe has long sleeves or other warming properties, but Walt's about thirty years older than the target consumer for this kind of attire. He feels like a grade-A doofus—albeit a warm grade-A doofus.

At least he won't see anybody he knows.

"Then there's an off-shot of Sandwich called Center Sandwich," Jesse continues, "that sounds like some sort of evil sandwich-related lair."

"Why does the phrase 'evil sandwich-related lair' need to exist?" Walt wonders aloud.

"You think the sandwiches themselves are evil? Or is it just, like, conspiracies to put nasty shit in people's sandwiches?"

"I think we need to stop saying 'sandwich.'"

"It wouldn't kill you to have a little fun, Mr. White."

"Actually, it would. My doctor put me on a strict no-fun diet," Walt says with a half-smile.

Jesse turns around to see the smirk on Walt's mouth, as if he considered the possibility that wasn't a joke. He walks backwards in the snow while he says, "Oh, yeah, when was that, when you were born?"

Just for that, Walt lets Jesse smack right into a tree, and he doesn't feel bad for laughing when a blanket of snow drops onto Jesse's head.

"Damn it," Jesse grumbles. His face goes beet-red, and he shakes the ice out of his hair.

Walt can't help but chuckle quietly to himself once Jesse turns his back.

It takes them a while to get into town, mostly because their cabin is smack-dab in the middle of fucking nowhere. But eventually the trees thin out and civilization lies before them. "You see the struggle I go through?" Jesse laments as they're crossing the bridge over the river. "We seriously need a car."

"Nothing that bounces, please." Walt thinks Jesse can at least do that much for him and their collective dignity.

Jesse just sighs like Walt's asked him to amputate one of his own limbs.

There's a bit of culture shock when Walt gets into the town proper. He's lived his entire life on sprawling plains and sun-baked suburbs; this is a hell of a change. The cold has robbed most trees of their foilage, but it's not difficult to imagine how colorful they would be with their leaves. Sheets of fluffy snow top the elegant roofs of the buildings lining the streets. Older structures are cobbled from stone and sturdy brick, while the newer ones are the standard wood and stucco architecture. Glorious mountains encroach on all sides, their peaks majestic against the crisp, azure blue sky.

Despite the obvious urban advances, the town has an old-world, rustic Northeastern feel to it, like something out of a Revolutionary War period piece. Walt takes it all in, tries not to gawk like a tourist. Jesse leads the way. "So, what'd'ya think? Pretty dope, huh?"

"It's different," Walt says. Understatement of the century.

"Good different or bad different?"

"We'll see."

Jesse's like an energetic tour guide, pointing out the market, and the bookstore, and the frozen yogurt shop across the street. Walt's more interested in the atmosphere: the snow-frosted church steeple, the clear, calm river flow, mountain ranges in the distance, sparsely-populated streets...

"Jesse, just off-hand, how many people live here?"

"I saw the sign somewhere the other day. I think it was, like, ten thousand or somethin'."

That's a hell of a difference from Albuquerque, which boasts over five-hundred thousand inhabitants. Walt hopes he and Jesse don't become fodder for small-town gossip. The last thing they need is to draw attention to themselves.

Jesse takes in the sights the way a child does on his first trip to Disneyland, and, okay, Walt's not going to deny that it's completely adorable. He briefly entertains the thought of one day taking Jesse to one of those amusement parks, if only to see the sparkle in his eyes. Yeah, Walt's kind of a sap deep down.

They have lunch at a diner that looks like it belongs in the tourist district of Memphis. There's a counter with spin stools, shiny aluminum décor everywhere, seats with that mix of red vinyl and leather that makes a "grr" sound when you sit on it. It's all very strange and normal, in a way Walt and Jesse absolutely aren't.

But, technically, they aren't Walt and Jesse anymore, so maybe change is necessary.

"So  _Iron Man 2_  is comin' out soon," Jesse says around a huge bite of his cheeseburger.

Walt thinks he's supposed to say something here. "Which one is he?"

Jesse stares at him like he's reconsidering their friendship. "How the fuck do you not know who Iron Man is?"

"Excuse me for not being an encyclopedia of knowledge on comic book characters."

"'Encyclopedia'? Dude, he's been around since, like, 1963. You should know this shit through cultural osmosis."

" _Osmosis_?" Walt had no idea Jesse even knew what that word means.

Jesse looks offended. "Yeah, I know stuff." He takes another bite. "So, yeah, we gotta see it when it comes out, 'cause Black Widow's gonna be in it"—he looks at Walt's face—"and clearly you have no idea how epic that is."

"We? Why am I involved in this?"

"Because I have to introduce you to some good movies." Jesse takes a sip of his orange soda. "It's a burden I've taken upon myself."

"'Good movies'?" Walt's judging him a little right now.

"What, like your taste is any better?"

"Yes, actually," Walt protests, because, yeah, that's where he's taking this conversation.

Jesse gives him a skeptical look. "Besides  _The Godfather_  and  _Star Wars_?"

" _Taxi Driver_."

"Snore."

" _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_."

"Snore."

Walt frowns. " _Casablanca_."

"Double snore."

" _North by Northwest_."

Jesse actually makes a snoring sound this time.

" _Citizen Kane_."

"More like Citizen Lame."

Walt smirks. "Those were all before your time, weren't they?"

"Yeah, Grandpa. Did they have telephones back then or did you have to communicate through messenger pigeons?"

"Smart-ass."

Jesse gives Walt a patronizing smile and stabs some of his fries into the ketchup moat on his plate. "This is weird, yo. I feel like I've known you forever, but I don't actually  _know_  you."

Walt doesn't know Jesse either, aside from his own preconceived notions. For two people who've spent so much time together, they've rarely shared anything particularly revealing or meaningful.

"I don't really know you either. I suppose I should, if we're going to be living together."

Jesse's right arm rests on the table, and Walt traces a finger down the length of the tattoo there. To Walt's surprise, Jesse doesn't jerk away. "Why don't you start? You could tell me why you got this. Any special significance?"

Jesse chuckles, breathy and chagrined. He rubs his hand over his face before he says, "I was high, and I thought it was a scorpion."

Walt tries not to laugh at that. He really does. But he can't help it. "Wow." He turns his head and squints. "I can see how you'd make that mistake, though."

"I know, right?" The corner of his mouth pulls into a smile. "Alright, my turn. What did you mean when you were talkin' about how you got five thousand bucks out of a billion-dollar company? What happened?"

Walt breathes out a long sigh. This is what he wanted, an opportunity to offer something personal and earn from Jesse in return. It seems a little weird to segue from  _I got this tattoo because I thought it looked like a scorpion_  to  _I took a five thousand dollar buyout that haunts me every night because I could have done so much more with my life_. But Jesse asked, so Walt leans in and says, "I won't go into too much detail, but, uh, have you ever heard of a company called Gray Matter?"

Jesse shakes his head, stuffs a couple fries into his mouth.

"Well, I co-founded it in grad school with a couple friends of mine. Actually, I was the one who named it. And back then it was just small time. We had a couple patents pending,but nothing earth-shattering. But we all knew the potential. We were gonna take the world by storm." He chuckles bitterly at the memory. "But then...well, something happened with the three of us, and for, uh, personal reasons I decided to leave the company, and I sold my share to my two partners. I took a buyout for five thousand dollars. Now, at the time, that was a lot of money. Care to guess what that company's worth now?"

Jesse just gives him a blank look, beckoning him to elaborate.

"2.16 billion as of last Friday. I look it up every week." Walt wishes he could unring that bell, because it feels like giving away too much. This is a wound that's never stopped bleeding. "And I sold my share, my potential, for five thousand dollars. I sold my kids' birthright for a few months' rent."

Jesse meets Walt's eyes for a brief moment before heat creeps across his cheeks and he glances away. "You didn't know."

Walt resists the instinct to scoff at that, because coming from Jesse it doesn't sound like a useless platitude. But his instincts exist for a reason. "I should have."

"Whatever, man," Jesse says, shaking his head. "Don't beat yourself up over it. It's done."

"That is surprisingly well-adjusted for you."

Jesse smiles at the compliment around a mouthful of food. "Yo, should we split one of those brownie things or would that be really gay?"

Walt just gives him a look at which Jesse rolls his eyes.

"Bitch."

During the trek home, Walt manages to find topics that Jesse can turn into entire passionate monologues, and he doesn't mind one bit letting Jesse ramble. He's had enough serious discussions for one day.


	4. Chapter 4

Walt spends the next week going into town with Jesse, if even for only an hour or two per day. Sometimes they have lunch together, trading casual conversation, and other times they go their separate ways in the bookstore; Walt gravitates toward the science and fiction sections while Jesse gets lost in the comic book aisles. Occasionally Jesse will return home with an armful of books, and Walt will read their spines and flip through the pages when Jesse's out, eager to know the stories in his head.

"So, Jesse," Walt starts one day as they're heading into town. "Is that, uh, is that movie you wanted to see out yet?"

Jesse scoffs good-naturedly. "What,  _Iron Man_?"

"That's the one."

"Yeah, it's out. So?"

Walt coughs. Jesse doesn't make embarrassing emotional breakthroughs easy, does he? "I was thinking maybe you'd like to see it," Walt explains, trying his best to sound casual, like this is just something he does all the time.

Jesse cuts through the bullshit. "Are you seriously offering to watch  _Iron Man 2_  with me?"

"Yes, that's—that's what I'm doing here." Walt feels his face go hot from a mix of embarrassment and frustration that Jesse's making him spell this out. Christ, can't the kid take a hint?

Jesse chuckles to himself, stubbing his toe at clumps of snow on the ground. "Damn, I never really made you for a comic book guy."

Walt shrugs, conceding, and he stares off at the distant mountain ranges when he says, "Walter Junior was more of a fan than I ever was."

Jesse slows his steps, as if he senses the precarious emotional territory Walt's treading. "Really? You ever sit through any superhero movies with him?"

"When he was younger, yes. As he grew older, we drifted apart. He made friends and, well, you know how teenagers are." He smiles, wistful now for the sullen frown and sarcastic eyeroll of his son. God, what Walt would give to hear Junior critique his taste in music again. He's never realized how precious every single memory is until they're all he has.

Jesse's expression softens into something akin to understanding. "Yeah, well, so do you."

Walt manages a smile. It's getting easier to smile around Jesse, to shed the bitterness and just exist in the moment.

"Alright, we can do a movie," Jesse says. "But you're buyin' me popcorn."

"Deal."

#

At the end of the third week, Jesse returns home at twilight, knocking snow off of his boots before he steps inside. "'Sup?"

Walt looks up from the pot of soup he's cooking on the stovetop. "You're home late." Because that doesn't make him sound like a nagging wife at all.

"Yeah, I got a job," Jesse says. He kicks his shoes off by the door.

"You got a job?" It sounds even less likely out loud; Walt's still in some sort of shock.

Jesse looks at him like that's not weird in the slightest. "Yeah."

"Where?"

"That woodworking place in town," Jesse says, shedding his coat and hanging it on the coat rack. "Remember? We passed it by a couple times."

Walt barely remembers, but he realizes the more important question is, "Why?"

"'Cause I wanted to? I was actually pretty good at it back in high school."

"I thought the only thing you were good at in high school was slacking off."

"Ha-ha," Jesse deadpans, rolling his eyes so hard he can probably inspect the inside of his skull. "You're so fucking funny, Mr. White."

Yeah, that might have been a touch insensitive.

"Is this about money?" Walt asks, returning to the pressing topic of Jesse's new job.

"What? No, I just—I just wanna get out and do stuff, y'know? I mean, what's the point of bein' in a whole new place if you're just gonna stay inside all day?" Jesse shrugs and pulls a clean set of clothes out of the closet. "Besides, it's just part time. I got enough money to last a while anyway."

He shuts the bathroom door before Walt can say anything else.

Could this job be Jesse's way of putting distance between them? It's not like Walt hasn't made an effort to be less of a grouch, but maybe Jesse can't stand being cooped up with him all the time, which, okay, Walt can understand that. He could definitely try being less of a crotchety old man, because clearly it hasn't done him any fucking favors.

#

Over the next few days, Walt takes to napping while Jesse's at work, because he doesn't want to waste the time he gets with Jesse in the evenings by dozing off early. Usually Jesse's courteous when he comes home, careful not to wake Walt until the distant hiss of the shower rouses him. But sometimes he'll toss his coat or hoodie on top of Walt's sleeping form and say, "Wake up, old man," because, yeah, Jesse's a douchebag.

Walt wakes up from a nap one day to the loud rumble of an engine outside. His heart thumps in a panic as he imagines the worst possible scenario: someone is here to kill him.

He's stumbling out of bed when he realizes that any trained hitman would have the good sense to be quiet about it. Unless Gus is outsourcing his hired hitmen, Walt's probably not going to be murdered today.

He peers out the window and sees a faded red truck with huge, rounded fenders parked outside. The windows are tinted, obscuring the view of the driver. The truck looks like it's almost as old as Walt, probably an early sixties or late fifties model. Then the driver door swings open, and Jesse hops out of the bulbous cab.

Walt takes a bit of comfort in the fact that this truck is probably too old to equip with embarrassing hydraulics. So there's that.

Jesse grabs as many bags and boxes out of the truck bed as he can carry. Walt opens the door for him, and Jesse's all smiles as he steps inside. "I got us a car," he announces. "Or a truck, I guess. Now we can haul a shit-load of groceries, and we can actually buy heavy stuff." His smile just won't quit; if Walt's honest, it's a little infectious. "And, y'know, I don't have to walk to work anymore."

Walt decides to ask the obvious question. "Uh, where did you find it?"

"You know that fish place across the street from the shop?"

Walt gives him a blank look.

"Yeah, of course you don't," Jesse mumbles. "But the guy that owns the place was sellin' it real cheap."

With their luck, this truck was probably used during a crime.

"I'm not an idiot," Jesse says, as if reading Walt's mind. "I made sure everything was legit."

"And he didn't think it was suspicious that suddenly the new guy in town needs a car?"

Jesse rolls his eyes. "I told 'im my ride crapped out on the drive up here. It's not even a big deal. He sorta knows me anyway 'cause sometimes I go over there for lunch. Jeez, unclench already."

Walt takes another look at the monstrosity parked in their front yard. "Well, it certainly has potential." He would have never thought Jesse would drive something like this in a million years; it's hardly flashy enough, though it is the same color as his past couple vehicles.

"Better than your shitty, pea-soup green Aztek," Jesse teases.

Walt figures he'll just let Jesse have that one.

He busies himself with helping Jesse unload the groceries, clears his throat awkwardly. "So, Jesse, uh, I was thinking, since we have a more efficient way of transportation, maybe you'd like to do something sometime?"

"Like what?" Jesse has absolutely no business sounding so suspicious of Walt's motives.

Walt shrugs, feigning casual. "I don't know, maybe one of those amusement parks from the brochures?"

Jesse studies Walt's face, like he doesn't trust Walt to be kind without some sort of horrible strings attached. "Yeah, I guess I could go."

"I was thinking more along the lines of both of us going."

Jesse's expression scrunches in. Not promising at all.

"If—if you want," Walt adds, because Jesse should not be looking at him like that. Why is this going so tragically wrong?

"You wanna go to an amusement park...with me?" There's a twitch of a smile at the corner of Jesse's mouth.

"We could go somewhere else if you want. It's up to you."

"Nah, it's just weird. I mean, I had to drag you outta here before, now you're all, 'let's hang out.'"

Walt moves closer, and Jesse's expression softens a little. "I know I caused you a lot of stress in the beginning, and I'm sorry. I'd like to make it up to you."

"Wow, Mr. White," Jesse says around a nervous laugh. "An apology? What, is it my birthday already?"

"Don't make me change my mind."

Jesse grins. "Alright, we can go ride the teacups, you big freak."

#

Walt blinks awake to darkness on Saturday morning. He can feel the heat from Jesse's body along his back, soft little breaths against his neck. Jesse's got an arm slung around Walt's waist in a way that's comforting and intimate somehow.

When Walt stirs to use the restroom, Jesse's fingers curl in Walt's t-shirt, and Jesse mumbles something that sounds like, "Mr. White." Walt freezes, and Jesse presses himself against Walt's spine. "Don't go," he murmurs, "we have to feed the UFO."

Walt smothers a laugh in his throat with a quiet cough. Screw it, his bladder can wait.

A couple hours later, Walt's up bright and early, fixing pancakes on top of the stove. The smell must rouse Jesse from his sleep, because he sits up and rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Why was I dreamin' about pancakes?" Jesse mumbles.

"Probably because you smelled them."

"Wha—" Jesse gets stuck there, sort of staring at Walt standing over the stove with a pancake flipper in his hand. He squints in a suspicious way. "Why?"

"Because I thought we should have pancakes this morning," Walt says, as if that explains everything. Which it clearly doesn't, because Jesse looks weirdly confused.

"You made us pancakes?"

It's like Jesse forgets that Walt was a real person with a family and the ability to cook before the whole meth-making arc of their lives. "Yes." He flips a stack of pancakes onto a plate. "And you're going to eat them, because I made your favorite: chocolate chip."

Jesse's brow furrows. "How'd you know that?"

"You mumbled something about it in your sleep last night."

"What?" Jesse shrieks, heat flooding his face. "No!" He covers his face—which is now the same color as a tomato—with his hands.

"No one ever told you that you talk in your sleep?"

"Jane did," Jesse groans through his hands, "but I thought it was 'cause of the drugs." He makes a whining sound. "God, what else did I say?"

"Sometimes you say her name," Walt admits, cloaking the guilt in his voice. "Sometimes you say mine."

"Oh my God, no," Jesse moans. He's never looking at Walt again.

"And last night I distinctly remember you saying, 'we have to feed the UFO.'"

Jesse flops onto the bed.

"You're amusing when you sleep," Walt says.

Jesse whines and buries his face in the pillow. "Can you just forget all that dumb shit I say when I'm asleep? Please? It's stupid. It doesn't mean anything."

"I realized that the night you said, 'the bananas have the Tardis.'"

Jesse grumbles something that Walt can't quite make out before crawling out of bed. "Did you really make pancakes because I was sleep-talking?"

"Well, partly, but I also thought you should have a good breakfast if we're going to the amusement park today."

Jesse sputters out a laugh. "What, seriously? I thought you were joking about that!"

Walt takes Jesse's reaction as some sort of personal insult. "You don't want to go?"

"I do, it's just... Man, this is weird. You're being, like, super nice and domestic lately. Do you—do you want something? Is that what this is?"

Walt pushes the plate of pancakes toward Jesse. "No, Jesse. I decided to do something nice for you. Try not to look a gift-horse in the mouth, okay?"

Jesse nods and grabs the syrup bottle.

Walt lets Jesse drive the truck, because Jesse's more familiar with the vehicle and the roads than Walt is. But if Walt's going to be stuck with Jesse in a car for a prolonged period of time, he refuses to let Jesse take control of the radio.

"Ugh, no, we're not listening to your lame-ass crap," Jesse says, switching the station to something loud and obnoxious. "Driver picks the music, yo."

"I  _let_  you drive." Walt frowns and turns the knob until he hears something he recognizes. "That means I get the radio."

"Hell no." Jesse flicks the station back.

They're not even out of the damn driveway yet, and they're already bickering. This does not bode well. Walt finds a quarter inside one of the cupholders. "Why don't we flip on it?"

Jesse looks dubious for a moment before relenting to Walt's proposition. "Fine. Heads."

"I suppose that makes me tails." Walt flips the coin and manages to catch it before it tumbles between the seat and the console. He opens his palm to reveal the results. "Well, look at that." Tails.

Jesse groans. "Ugh, c'mon, Mr. White."

"I thought the coin flip was sacred,  _yo_ ," Walt says with a wicked grin. He presses one of the radio preset buttons in hopes of finding something he can tolerate. He's surprised to see that Jesse doesn't make frustrated noises or attempt to change the station. He might actually be singing along a little as he pulls out of the driveway.

Okay, this is officially weird, even on Walt's new "adjusted for Jesse Pinkman" scale of weird.

"You know this song?" Walt asks.

Jesse takes Walt's shock in stride. "Yeah, my aunt and you would'a got along great. You both like the same lame-ass music."

"I'm offended that you would refer to Phil Collins as 'lame-ass music'," Walt says, folding his arms over his chest.

Jesse snorts a laugh and throws his head back. "Oh my God, I cannot believe that sentence was actually uttered by a human. Never change, Mr. White."

 _Only if you don't_ , Walt thinks as they're pulling out of the driveway.

It takes them about an hour to reach the park, because the drive is punctuated with frequent restroom stops that Jesse complains about loudly. It's the middle of a Saturday, which means the place is packed with crowds.

Jesse's shifting from one leg to the other while they're waiting in line for the pirate ship ride. Walt's first instinct is to chide him for his impatience, but to be honest he's feeling a little irked himself. "It's been forever since I had to wait in line for one of these things," Walt says, trying to pique a conversation with Jesse to pass the time.

Jesse's expression changes as the light goes on in his head. "Oh, yeah, 'cause of your kid, right?"

Walt nods.

"Well, I mean, you got cancer. We could try to do somethin' with that," Jesse says, like it's no big deal. "They let sick kids go to the front of the line all the time."

"Jesse, no."

Jesse sighs like Walt's being unreasonable. He tilts his head back and squints when the sun hits his eyes. "Fine, we'll just wait forever then."

Walt looks off into the distance, surveying the other rides. A gigantic roller coaster looms in before them, and it doesn't appear to have a very long line. "Why don't we try that instead?" Walt asks, pointing to the ride.

Jesse's face loses a bit of color. "What, now? We're, like, halfway through the line already. We'll lose our spot."

"We can come back later when the crowd's thinned out."

Jesse shrugs in a way that says nothing at all.

Walt fights the smile that wants to form on his mouth. "Are you scared?"

Jesse frowns and wrings his hands. "No! I just think we should, y'know, save the best for last." It's hard to believe him when just talking about it is making him nervous and shaky.

"If the San Andreas quaked like your voice, they'd be calling for an evacuation."

Jesse folds his arms over his chest and looks away. "Shut up." He might actually be pouting.

Walt doesn't bother hiding his smile this time. There's something kind of adorable about Jesse when he's being petulant. "Why would you want to go to an amusement park if you're afraid of riding roller coasters?"

"'Cause they got other rides!" Jesse argues, his face heating up. "Y'know, like—like the teacups and the pirate ship and bumper cars..." He watches the coaster car spin through a loop on the track, and the blood drains from his face.

"I don't think teacups have ever been synonymous with excitement."

"If you wanna ride it so bad, just go by yourself. I'll wait. Or maybe I'll bounce and get a pretzel. Whatever." Jesse pushes a hand through his hair, still avoiding eye contact.

"Are you afraid of heights?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "When I was eight I got stuck at the top of one of those stupid things," he mumbles. "You'd be scared too."

"But you didn't die."

Jesse throws his arms out so far it looks like he's trying to fly. "So? I could've! Dude, what if we get stuck upside down in one of those loops?" He points to the coaster track. "Nobody could survive that fall."

"That's not going to happen, Jesse."

"Do you  _know_  that? Like, for real?"

"If I'm wrong, what're you gonna do? You'll be dead."

Jesse scrunches up his face in what Walt thinks is supposed to be a scowl. "And I will haunt your ass forever."

"No, you won't. I'll be dead too. 'Nobody could survive that fall,' remember?" Walt smirks, because, yeah, he likes pulling Jesse's chain a little too much.

"Prick," Jesse says around a sigh. Walt takes Jesse's arm and guides him in the direction of the roller coaster. "No, no! Mr. White, c'mon!" Jesse whines, but he doesn't make any attempts to struggle or break free, which he absolutely could—Walt's not holding on too tightly.

"Jesse, it's going to be fine."

"I swear to God I will throw up on you."

"I have two children," Walt says without really thinking about the tense. "I'm used to it." Jesse goes slack under his hand, the tension in his muscles gone as he walks alongside Walt. His expression is absolutely tragic, like he just watched one of those depressing movies where the dog dies at the end.

Jesse notices that Walt's watching him and rearranges his face into something angry and petulant. "Alright, whatever. I'll face my fears and all that good shit."

#

"I thought you were going to throw up on me," Walt says as Jesse's hurling up his internal organs into a trash bin a few feet away from the ride exit.

"Are you seriously complaining?" Jesse croaks once he's finished. He stands there, hands shaking and braced on the edge. He's breathing roughly, like he thinks there might be more. "Jesus."

"Now was that really so bad?"

"Yes." Walt moves nearer to him, swirls a hand over Jesse's back. Jesse doesn't even flinch. "People don't throw up when something's awesome."

"But you didn't get stuck this time."

Jesse makes a pained noise.

"And maybe next time you won't get sick."

Jesse lifts his head. "Next time? I don't think I can puke again without horfing up my spleen or something. I'm wiped out, man."

"Alright, I'll buy you a funnel cake first," Walt says, smirking as he claps Jesse on the back and heads for the concession stands.

He thinks he hears Jesse grumble, "Bitch," behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

Walt wakes up around four in the morning to the sound of gut-wrenching sobs. Jesse's face is buried in Walt's chest, hands clutched in his shirt as he stains it with tears. Walt loops an arm around him and tucks him in closer. "Jesse? Jesse?"

Jesse whimpers through a crushing wave of sobs. He claws at Walt's shirt, like he's trying to make sure Walt is real.

"Jesse, it's okay," Walt murmurs. "I'm here. You're safe. It's just a dream."

Jesse sniffles and wails, "No, it's not." His throat sounds rubbed raw with grief.

Walt doesn't know what to do, so he just swirls a hand over Jesse's back to soothe him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Jesse moves his head from side to side, his entire body spasming with sadness. Walt shuts his eyes, wishing he could block out the awful sounds of Jesse's pain.

"What can I do, Jesse?"

Jesse sniffles again and manages to seize enough control of himself to pry his face away from Walt's chest. He looks at Walt with wet, red-rimmed eyes. "Don't—don't leave me alone," he chokes out. "I don't wanna be alone."

Walt holds Jesse tighter in the cradle of his arms. "I'm not going anywhere."

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because a new wave of hysteria bursts forth and makes Jesse cry harder. His lungs sound like they're having a fistfight. "But you will. Everybody does. Ginny, Jane... I can't—I can't do this again..."

Guilt settles in Walt's chest like a boulder. He swallows thickly, tastes regret in the back of his throat. He doesn't know what to say or do to ease Jesse's suffering, but he presses his lips to the top of Jesse's head with the slightest pressure and lets him cry himself out.

#

Walt wakes up first and decides to make breakfast. Jesse's fast asleep, worn out from his crying jag last night. Walt pushes aside the curtains hanging from the window over the stove. The morning sky has a soft glow as the pinkness of a new day rises over the mountaintops and the peaks of the trees. There's a melancholy serenity to the solitude here, silence and stillness like a blanket over the snow.

While the sun climbs in the sky, Walt cooks them both breakfast and thinks about what Jesse said last night. As much as Jesse protested he didn't want to be alone, Walt doesn't doubt that Jesse could build new relationships if he were on his own. Has being tethered to Walt hindered Jesse's personal growth?

Maybe Walt's done nothing but hurt Jesse since they reconnected. He can judge all he wants, but he can't deny that Jesse seemed happier before Walt gained a stranglehold on the kid's life. Sure, Jesse was cooking low-grade meth and falling out of windows in his underwear, but at least he wasn't stuffed in the trunk of a car or mourning the loss of his girlfriend.

Hard to argue when Walt looks at it that way.

Jesse's stirring awake by the time the eggs are done. He rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand, pushes his fingers through his hair. He sniffles and drags himself out of bed.

"Hungry?" Walt figures he has to be perky this morning, since Jesse looks dead on his feet.

Jesse manages a nod and a grunt that sounds like a yes before shuffling into the bathroom. Walt fixes him a plate—eggs and bacon on toast—because, yeah, he can be nice sometimes. He opens the rest of the curtains to chase away some of the gloom. Jesse emerges a minute or two later, and his mouth curves into a half-smile when he sees food on the table. "Thanks," he croaks, pulling out a chair.

Walt gives him a nod of acknowledgement. He can see the exhaustion in Jesse's eyes from here. "You want some coffee?" He taps his own mug for emphasis.

Jesse shakes his head, nibbles on a strip of bacon. They eat in mildly uncomfortable silence for a while until Jesse says, "Do you, uh, you ever think about your wife and kids?"

Walt nods grimly. "All the time."

Jesse looks at him. "Why don't you give 'em a call?"

Walt just stares at Jesse like he's suggested something outlandish and insane. "And put them in danger? Jesse, the entire reason I left was to keep my family safe."

"How is anyone gonna know you called them? It's been, like, two months. Gale's probably headmaster of the lab or some shit."

Walt lifts an eyebrow. "Headmaster?"

"I've been reading a lot of  _Harry Potter_ ," Jesse mumbles. He takes a bite of toast. "But, like, Gus probably thinks you're dead by now. I mean, he—he knew about the cancer, right? And he knew you were cooking to make money for your people, so why would you abandon your family to get away from him, y'know? If you ran, wouldn't it make more sense to take them with you?"

Walt feels the twist of the knife in his heart. "Jesse, I—I didn't  _abandon_  them, alright?"

If Jesse were a dog, he'd have his ears flattened and his tail between his legs right now. "I know, I'm sorry, I just meant that's what Gus would think. Poor choice of words." His face flushes red, and his drops his gaze to the table where he won't offend the toast and eggs.

Walt breathes out a sigh through his nose. He shouldn't be angry at Jesse. Jesse's only trying to help, in his own clumsy way. "I don't want to put them in jeopardy just because I'm—" He shakes his head, aborts that train of thought entirely. "All of this would be for nothing..."

Jesse looks mortally wounded at that, so Walt decides to shut the fuck up before he does any more damage.

#

It takes Walt approximately two hours and fifteen minutes of solitude after Jesse's gone to work before he dials his old home phone number. Skyler answers after three rings. "Skyler White."

Walt's voice catches in his throat. "Skyler?"

She gasps. "Walt? What happened—Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine. I just—I just wanted to hear your voice. I miss you and the kids."

She sighs out a deep breath. "Jesus, Walt, I thought you were—I thought the point of you doing this was to keep us safe!"

"It is," he insists.

"How can we be safe if you're contacting us? What if these people who are after you have tapped our phones or bugged our house?"

Walt figures if Gus was keeping tabs on them he would have pulled the bugs after two months of no contact. He tells her as much.

"And you're willing to jeopardize our safety—and yours—on a hunch?"

"I wanted to reconnect. Our last conversation... Well, I didn't want that to be how you remember me."

"Do you really think things will ever get back the way they were?"

He swallows thickly. "It won't be easy, but I think we can mend fences."

"'Mend fences'? You don't even—" Skyler cuts that one short with a scoff. "Okay, fine. How do you propose we do that?"

"We could make it work. You and the kids could come here and live with me. We could start over." Walt ignores how eerily close this is to his original suggestion to Jesse.

"Would you? Would you really start over?" she challenges him. "I don't think you could give it up completely."

"Give what up?"

"This  _second life_  of yours." He knows what she means: the life of Heisenberg. "Because you can't have both, Walter. You tried to have your cake and eat it too, and that's why we're where we are now."

He shuts his eyes, wounded by the truth in her words. His life with Jesse and his life with Skyler are like two stubborn refrigerator magnets he's trying to hold together.

And what if Skyler agreed to bring the kids and come live with him? Would he just force Jesse out on his own? He'd have to, because obviously Skyler would have a problem with keeping Jesse under their roof.

And what about Hank and Marie? Would Walt have to come clean and tell them he faked his death, or would they end up losing Skyler, Holly, and Walter Junior too?

"What are you—what are you saying, Skyler?"

"I'm saying you need to choose. Either your family or your other life. If you choose us, call me. Otherwise, stay out of our lives." She hangs up before he can object to the ultimatum.

#

Walt can't sleep. He's grown accustomed to the soft rhythm of Jesse's breathing and the occasional murmur of hilarious nonsense. So Walt's a little thrown off that Jesse doesn't sound asleep now. His breaths are too unsteady, and he's way too quiet. Is he pretending to be asleep? Jesse's got his back to Walt, so he can't tell.

Walt sighs and shifts in the bed. He stares at the ceiling, and loneliness seeps into his bones, reminding him of his first night here. Talking to Skyler today had been a mistake. It only emphasized the chasm between the two sides of Walt he's been trying to force together—Skyler's Walt and Jesse's Walt. But they cannot coexist. Walt remembers the old adage: try to chase two foxes and you will lose them both.

He lost his family when he delved too deeply into the meth business and Skyler put the pieces of his deception together. He almost lost Jesse when he tried to cook solo, and Walt will lose him for sure if he leaves Jesse high and dry here in the middle of nowhere.

He's done too much damage. And the only person who's stuck by him through it all is Jesse.

Jesse stirs, turns over onto his back. He glances at Walt. "You can't sleep either?"

"No." Walt turns his head to look at Jesse. Jesse's watching him with wide, helpless eyes, like he's waiting for Walt to say something more. It's one of Jesse's more common expressions—a thousand emotions compressed into one little glance—but this time Walt's world explodes in a thousand different ways, because Jesse's gaze flicks from Walt's eyes to his mouth, then back to his eyes, and suddenly Walt  _gets_  it now, why they keep coming together again and again against all odds.

Natural, basic chemistry.

Walt captures Jesse's mouth underneath his own. Jesse lets it happen, tilts his head up into the kiss. It's chaste and gentle, but it's the most powerful thing Walt's felt in a long time. He could die a happier, more fulfilled man now than if he died moments earlier. But now, more than anything, Walt wants to live and never stop kissing Jesse.

Jesse just sort of holds his mouth there, and Walt guides him, their lips moving together. Jesse licks at Walt's lower lip, hums a soft sound around the kiss. Their mouths dance in chorus, a slow push and pull, and Walt wants to consume Jesse and be consumed all at once. All the thoughts in his head short out. Walt can't feel anything but the way kissing Jesse makes his body come alive.

He reaches out and lays a careful hand along the side of Jesse's face, just enough to bring him a little closer. Walt's fingers nestle in Jesse's hair, and Jesse tangles a hand in the front of Walt's t-shirt. He sighs out something that sounds like, "Mr. White," when Walt's mouth follows the line of Jesse's jaw. He suckles a kiss beneath Jesse's ear, and Jesse moans low in his throat. The sound makes something burn and build inside Walt, makes his lips find Jesse's throat and leave their mark. Jesse's fingers go tight in Walt's shirt, and he seals their mouths together again.

Walt loses track of how many times their lips break away and reconvene, lost to the gentle rasp of Jesse's mouth against his own. Neither of them push for more or try to end it. After some time, Walt has to pull away so he can breathe again. Jesse's eyes are wide and wet, anticipation written on his face. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip, leaves his mouth open just enough for Walt to kiss him and slip his own tongue in the space there if he wanted. Jesse's breathing shuddery breaths, like he's just run a marathon. Like he's scared. But he doesn't look like he regrets it or wishes it hadn't happened.

Maybe Jesse wants this just as much as Walt does.

Walt gazes at him, trying to memorize every plane and angle and detail on his face. "Jesse..." He doesn't know what to say, if words will help or hinder, so he just leans in and kisses him again.

#

The next morning, Jesse's busy with breakfast in the kitchen. Walt stays in bed and pretends to be asleep. He keeps one eye open, because he doesn't often get the opportunity to watch Jesse candidly. Jesse's hands shake as he cracks the eggs over the pan. He swears under his breath and plucks out fragments of eggshells.

Walt closes his eyes for a moment, then Jesse's finished cooking by the next time he opens them. He decides to get up lest he miss a delicious breakfast by sleeping in. Jesse gets a deer-in-the-headlights look when he sees Walt climb out of bed.

"Hey, good morning," he sputters, cheeks flushing pink.

A smile breaks out across Walt's face, because he's never seen anything more beautiful than Jesse is right now with the soft morning glow bouncing off of the planes of his face. Jesse looks away and blushes harder, as if he senses Walt's admiring him.

"Something wrong?"

Jesse rubs the back of his neck, shrugs like he's trying to seem casual. "Nah, I just had a really weird dream last night."

Walt smirks and moves closer. He lays his index finger over a bright red splotch on the line of Jesse's throat. "Must've been some dream."

Jesse's eyes widen, and he glances down at Walt's hand in horror. His face turns a hilarious shade of red as he whirls around to the stovetop. "Uh, yeah..."

Something hard settles in Walt's stomach. What if he misread Jesse's signals last night? Jesse talks in his sleep; would it be that much of a stretch for him to kiss in his sleep too? Walt's aware of how ridiculous it sounds, but he's not ruling out the possibility. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

"What makes you think I do?"

"You kissed me," Walt says, because that's kind of a big issue.

Jesse glares in defiance. " _You_  kissed  _me_."

Oh Christ. Walt definitely misread him. Fuck. "There's obviously some confusion here that ought to be addressed. Or would you rather pretend this never happened?"

"No," Jesse answers almost immediately, his cheeks pinked. "I just—I just don't know why you did it."

Walt breathes a sigh of relief. At least Jesse isn't making disgusted noises at the memory. "Why do you think I did it?"

"'Cause you're lonely. You miss your wife and, I dunno, maybe you were drunk and thought I was her or that it would feel the same..."

Walt's mouth drops open. " _What_?"

Jesse pauses. "Is that not what this is?"

"No," Walt says, offended that Jesse would even think he was some sort of stand-in for Skyler.

"So, what, then? 'Cause if you didn't always look at me like you wanna strangle me, I'd say you might actually like me." Jesse laughs a bitter sound. "But why would you want a 'pathetic junkie imbecile,' right?"

Walt feels that one ripple in his chest. "Jesse, you're none of those things."

Jesse doesn't look like he believes Walt. Why can't Jesse trust him when he's actually being honest?

Walt's expression doesn't change, and he watches as Jesse slowly lets it all sink in. "Do you—do you seriously have a thing for me? Is that why you're being all weird and nice all of a sudden? Takin' me out, goin' places with me... Do you not get how weird that is?"

Walt does not.

Jesse waves a hand in a way that's supposed to mean something. "Okay, obviously you don't."

Walt moves in closer, grabs Jesse's face and kisses him again. Jesse gasps around Walt's mouth but kisses him back with fervor. It takes a while for them to stop.

"So you really... You really like me?" Jesse asks, breathless. "I thought you were trying to, like, force yourself not to hate me 'cause we're living together."

Walt's mouth curls in disgust that he ever gave Jesse that impression. He slides his palms over Jesse's skin, curves them over his hips. Jesse's skin is hot under his hands. "I don't hate you, Jesse. If this is something you want, you can have it."

Jesse looks at him in awe. He lays his hands on Walt's forearms, like he's trying to make sure this is real. Jesus, has anyone ever asked Jesse what he wants before? Walt knows he hasn't.

Jesse's eyes are wet for a moment before he looks away. A tear rolls down his cheek. Walt reaches up and brushes the wetness away with his thumb. Jesse practically crumbles beneath the gesture. "So what happens when I'm the only one left?" he croaks out.

"What do you mean?"

Jesse bites his lips together and blinks a few times before he speaks again. "You're gonna die way before me anyway, but when your cancer comes back—or if it already has..." He shakes his head, trailing off with a sniffle. "I can't—I can't do that again, Mr. White."

Walt understands now why Jesse had sobbed himself to sleep the other night. "But you're going to, whether we do this or not. How do you want to spend the time until then?"

Jesse's lower lip quivers before he pulls Walt tight against him and buries his face in Walt's shirt. Walt can feel Jesse's hands ball into fists against his back. He closes his eyes and links his arms around Jesse's waist.

Jesse's made his choice. Now, Walt has too.

#

Jesse drags his weary bones into bed that night, and Walt pulls the blankets aside so Jesse has room to crawl in alongside him. Jesse makes a sound of gratitude, lying on his side and facing Walt. Walt can't help but reach out and cup a hand around Jesse's cheek like he's some sort of fragile thing.

"I guess it won't be weird anymore when I'm all over you in my sleep, huh?" Jesse says, a smirk teasing at the corner of his lips.

"I wouldn't mind if you did that while you were awake."

Jesse smiles. "Oh yeah?" He leans in and presses a kiss over Walt's mouth, long and deep, unhurried, like they have the rest of their lives to learn how to kiss each other. And, yeah, they kind of do.

Jesse's mouth slows, and Walt rolls onto his back to grant Jesse reprieve. He slides his fingers through the damp spikes of Jesse's hair and brings his head to his chest. Jesse doesn't fight him, just closes his eyes and rests there. Walt pulls the covers up to Jesse's shoulders. The weight of him feels like home, filling the void inside of Walt with something solid and real.

"Hey, Mr. White?" Jesse murmurs, sounding half-asleep.

"Yes?"

"It's 'cause you're alone, right? That's why we're doing this."

Before the cancer, there had only been Walt and Skyler and Walt Junior and then baby Holly, and Jesse was only an aggravating kid in Walt's class, nothing more than a memory.

After the diagnosis, Jesse reentered Walt's life, and trouble followed them like a haunting spectre, and his world stretched and expanded and somehow shrunk along the way. If Skyler still wanted him, would Walt be here with Jesse now? He doesn't have the slightest clue. They've become so enmeshed in each other it seems impossible to disentangle without leaving behind pieces of themselves. Jesse feels stitched into his very being.

"I think we're doing this because we care about each other," Walt says instead.

Jesse seems to accept that answer, his fingers relaxing a little around Walt's t-shirt. He smooths his hand over Walt's chest and closes his eyes again. Walt draws his fingers through Jesse's hair until the glint of his wedding band catches his eyes and gives him pause.

Skyler asked him to choose which life he wanted to keep, and Walt inevitably chose this one, the one where he gets to live out his days with Jesse in his heart and his home. But if Walt is doing this, he has to do it right. He's asked everyone else to start over, but he's the one still clinging to the tatters of his old life.

Once Jesse's breathing has slowed to something resembling sleep, Walt plucks the ring from his finger and places it behind him on the night table.

_No more half measures, Walter._


	6. Chapter 6

Walt lets Jesse sleep in on his next day off work, because watching Jesse sleep is one of Walt's new favorite pasttimes; it's nice to be able to press gentle kisses to the exposed curves of Jesse's throat and jaw or brush his fingers through Jesse's hair without being thought of as creepy.

Jesse's tucked up along the line of Walt's body, and if he's awake he can definitely feel the, uh,  _interest_  Walt's taking in him right now. Yeah, Walt's thought about it a lot, but Jesse deserves better than some awkward morning dry-humping for his first sexual forage with Walt. That doesn't make his dick any less hard though.

"I have a surprise for you," Walt says that afternoon while Jesse's making a sandwich.

Jesse freezes, holding the mini-fridge door open and turning his head to look at Walt. "Oh yeah? It's not gonna be anything weird, is it?"

"I suppose that depends on your definition of weird. But I thought since we're, well, dating now that we ought to do it properly."

Jesse sputters out laughter. "You gonna show up at my door with flowers? Promise my parents I'll be back by curfew?"

Walt feels like that's a jab at his age somehow. "I haven't had a first date in over fifteen years, Jesse. You'll have to be patient with me."

Jesse's expression wilts. He rubs the back of his neck and glances off. "Sorry. What's the surprise?"

"We have a date tonight. Is dinner okay?"

"Yeah, that's cool," Jesse says, turning back to the fridge and piling packages of meat and cheese into his free hand. "How is that a surprise though? Isn't that just what we do?"

Have they been dating all this time and not been aware of it? That sounds like something that would happen to them. Walt coughs, clears his throat. "Well, this is a bit more scenic than usual."

Jesse makes a confused face but doesn't press for more details, like he's trying to figure it out for himself.

Their date takes place that evening on a train that rolls through the foilage of New Hampshire, because if they're going to live in a place that looks like something out of a damn storybook they ought to take the time to appreciate it. The spring leaves have blossomed into glistening emeralds, and the glow of the sunset lights Jesse up like something out of a renaissance painting. It's a little warm in the train car, so Jesse's already shed his oversized hoodie on the seat beside him.

"So tell me about yourself, Mr. White," Jesse says once dinner is served. He cuts into his pasta with a grace Walt hadn't known him to possess.

Walt just gives him a blank look.

"This is our first date, right? Isn't this when you're supposed to, like, get to know each other?"

"Jesse, we already know each other."

Jesse stuffs a forkful of noodles into his mouth. "Yeah, but, I mean, we got new identities now, right? So why can't we just totally start over? Pretend we don't know each other."

Walt rolls his eyes. Yes, this ridiculous human being is where he's chosen to lay his affections. He sighs and swallows his pride, because humoring Jesse's silly whims is part of the package now that they're officially a thing. "Alright, well, I used to be a chemistry teacher. High school." He casually omits the whole meth thing, because if they're pretending to be strangers, why should Jesse know the worst parts of him?

"Oh yeah? You got any memorable students?"

Walt sees where Jesse's going with this and ups the ante. "There was one in particular. Oh, he was infuriating. A slacker. He had potential, I could tell, but he never truly applied himself. But there was something about him; if he had been a few years older, well, have you heard that song 'Don't Stand So Close to Me' by The Police?" Walt smirks.

Jesse's face is fucking  _priceless_. Walt's tempted to reach across the table and close Jesse's mouth for him.

"That was a joke, Jesse."

His cheeks are still hot with blood. "Jesus, Mr. White..." He shifts a little in his seat, and, wow, is the whole teacher/student thing a kink for Jesse? Walt could definitely work with that. "Isn't that song a little modern for you? I thought you were all about Sinatra and shit."

Walt frowns. "How old do you think I am?"

"Older than some people," Jesse says, struggling with the words, choosing carefully as to not offend Walt. "But younger than a lot of 'em too."

"Thank you," Walt grumbles, "I only feel about a hundred years old now."

"Damn, you look awesome for your age."

Walt tries very hard not to laugh at that, but deep down he's always been a sucker for Jesse's boyish charm. "Now it's your turn. Tell me about yourself."

Jesse goes quiet for a moment, pushing the food on his plate around with his fork. Walt watches the scenery roll by outside the window, opting to give Jesse a little more breathing room. If Jesse's not being watched, maybe he can better piece his thoughts together. "Well, uh, I'm Jesse. I'm into nerd shit like comic books and fantasy, like, uh,  _Harry Potter_  and  _A Song of Ice and Fire_  and  _Lord of the Rings_."

Walt's seen those titles on Jesse's makeshift bookshelf back home, printed on the spines of dog-eared books Jesse had read before falling asleep.

"I guess you could say I'm an entrepreneur of sorts," he says with mirth. "Well, I  _was_. I had a business partner. He was kind of a dick. Always on my ass about somethin'."

"Maybe he cared about you and didn't know how to show it," Walt says, because he has to poke at that.

Jesse shrugs. "Or maybe he could just be a total douche."

Walt figures he deserves that one. "Total douche" is kind of an understatement when Walt thinks about all the shit he's piled on Jesse. "So what happened to him?"

"Guess he found his way," Jesse says with his mouth full. "He could be cool sometimes though. I owe him a lot, actually."

Walt can't help but smile. Even when pretending to be strangers, they still talk about each other. He wonders if that means something, if some sort of rotten destiny pushed them together through the worst of circumstances.

As first dates go, it's not terrible. It's actually kind of endearing watching Jesse present bits of himself he thinks Walt might find interesting or admirable. By the end of the evening, Walt realizes they should have just had dinner at a normal restaurant, because it's difficult to take in the gorgeous scenery rolling by when Jesse's in front of him.

By nightfall they're parked out front of the cabin, huddled in the truck bed together and gazing up at the sprawling night sky. Jesse's tucked up close to Walt, his head lying on Walt's shoulder. Walt's arm is looped around Jesse's middle. He's got one hand pushed inside the pocket of Jesse's hoodie to stave off the chill of the air.

"I always loved looking at the stars," Walt says. He thinks about mentioning how he used to stare at the serene sky on the nights they cooked together out in the desert, but, oh yeah, strangers with no illegal drug connections. "There's something very calming about it. Imagine that we are merely a speck in one of a hundred billion other galaxies filled with countless other life forms."

Jesse cuddles closer, stuffs a hand into his hoodie pocket to lace with Walt's own. "Nerd alert."

"I suppose if I were talking about dragons or wizards you'd find it more appealing?"

"Hell yeah. Dragons are fucking awesome." He squeezes Walt's fingers. "It's like, okay, maybe they're real, maybe they aren't, but they're supposed to be metaphors or whatever for your fears. And the hero always slays the dragon, so it's basically saying 'you're the hero of your own story, now go make that dragon your bitch.'"

Walt smiles. "You always did have a particular flair for English class."

Jesse tilts his head to look at him. "We're not supposed to know each other, remember?"

"Just an educated guess." Walt stares up at the canopy of stars, distant points of light in the sky. "What about wizards?"

"Well, in  _Harry Potter_  the good guys like Harry and Hermoine and Ron help their friends and do good with their magic, where the bad guys just wanna fuck shit up. So it's like, just 'cause you're talented or magical doesn't mean you can be a dickhole."

"That's a unique way of looking at it." Walt turns his head and takes in the way the moonlight hits the angles of Jesse's face. There's a crinkle of a smile at the corner of Jesse's mouth, and Walt lifts his free hand to press his thumb there. Walt can feel the heat of Jesse's breath ghosting against his skin. He closes in and covers Jesse's mouth with his own. Jesse hums around the press of mouth and kisses him back, edging closer like he wants to crawl through Walt.

Walt's hand nestles into the curve of Jesse's neck, fingers pushed into his hair. Jesse's tongue glides slow and soft against Walt's own before Jesse tilts his head to kiss him deeper. It's only their third kiss, but it feels like they've been doing this for ages, like it's second nature for Jesse to run his tongue across Walt's bottom lip and claim his mouth again.

Walt lets his hand skim down to the dip of Jesse's lower back, nudging at the edge of his jeans, and Jesse makes a soft little gasping sound around his lips. He can't tell if Jesse's just reacting to the bite of winter against his skin or Walt's kissing expertise. He tests his theory by pushing his hand under Jesse's jeans and getting a nice handful of his ass.

Jesse chokes out, "Mr. White," and latches his fingers onto Walt's shirt. Walt never knew how much he wanted to hear Jesse say his name like that until it's out there. He grinds forward, desperate for a little friction. Jesse says something shaky, as if reading Walt's mind. "It's—it's too cold," he murmurs. "We should go inside..."

Walt knows an invitation when he hears one. He sits up and climbs out of the truck bed. Jesse follows him, crunching ice under his boots as they trek to the cabin. Walt doesn't bother switching the lights on when he gets inside; the moonlight seeps through the windows enough to guide the way. He tosses a log into the fireplace before realizing the implications there: alone with each other in a cozy cabin, a fire crackling in the fireplace... It's a damn recipe for romance, or as close to romance as they're capable of. But Walt takes what he can get.

Jesse kicks his sneakers off by the door and sheds his hoodie on the coat rack. "You tryin' to seduce me, Mr. White?"

Walt's attempt to set the mood didn't go unnoticed, apparently. "Is it working?"

Jesse moves closer and hooks his index fingers through the gaps of Walt's belt loops. "Well, it's kinda old-fashioned, but you're rusty." He steals another kiss, then Walt's crushing his mouth over Jesse's and wrapping his hands around his hip bones. He pulls Jesse in the direction of the bed. Jesse goes willingly, dropping into Walt's lap when he sits on the mattress. The sight makes Walt's throat go dry.

"Turn around," Walt says, a rough growl of words.

Jesse's face goes hot, and he pauses for a moment, like his brain's caught on the command. But he obeys, presses the line of his back into the curve of Walt's chest. Walt rests his chin on the slope of Jesse's shoulder and pops open the button of his jeans. Jesse's chest jumps in a breath. Walt draws the zipper down, prolonging the moment. If Jesse can feel the erection pressing at his spine he isn't saying anything about it. But he's probably too focused on the fact that Walt has a significant handful of his dick to notice anything else.

"Mr. White..." Jesse's voice is a cracked, shuddery thing. He reaches back blindly with one hand and grabs onto Walt's arm, his hips pushing into the touch. "Mr. White..."

Walt tugs Jesse's ridiculous green-skull boxers over his hips and loosens his fist, lets it slide along the length of Jesse's dick. "That's good, Jesse," Walt reassures him, stroking him slow and awkwardly gentle, because he's never touched a cock other than his own. But Jesse doesn't seem to notice or care; he's jerking his hips into Walt's wrist like his life depends on this orgasm. He turns his head toward Walt, and Walt catches a glimpse of his eyes, blue and awed, and Walt squeezes the shaft, just enough to make Jesse bite his lip and whine.

"God—that's..." Jesse moans a helpless noise and tips his head back, and Walt kisses the stubble on his jaw, sucks a kiss into the curve of his neck. His hand's still working over Jesse's cock, his fist opening and closing. "Shit..." Jesse's dick is dripping wet, gone red with blood at the head. Walt loosens his hand and gets his fingers slick with the pearly beads of cum.

"Scoot down," Walt murmurs at his ear. A shiver of arousal crawls down Jesse's spine at the order. If Jesse has a kink for being bossed around in bed, Walt thinks they're going to have amazing sex.

Jesse does as he's told, and Walt follows him, tucking himself up tight along the line of Jesse's body. Jesse's got his head on Walt's chest, his body in between Walt's legs. Walt's not touching him anymore, so Jesse's squirming around and squeezing his thighs together for friction.

"Open your legs."

It's not a request, but Jesse doesn't even bother refusing. Walt edges his cum-slicked hand between Jesse's thighs and finds the spot that needs his touch the most. Jesse shudders out a filthy sound of want and bucks his hips. "Shit—Jesus—Mr. White—"

"It's okay," Walt says, kissing the slope of his neck. "It's okay, Jesse. I've got you." He slides a slippery finger inside, and Jesse's tight enough that that's all he needs to start shoving into Walt's hand and moaning like he's dying. His fingers clutch at Walt's arm, nails dragging over skin. Walt lays his other hand low on Jesse's belly to hold him steady, fingers pushing through the wiry hair at the base of his dick. "No one's ever touched you like this, have they?"

The way Jesse's responding to Walt's touch says that, no, Walt's the first person to take him apart like this. He tries not to let that feed his ego, but he's only human.

The heel of Walt's hand rolls over Jesse's balls with every stroke and press, and, wow, okay, that's probably why Jesse's gulping for breath like there's not enough air in the world for his lungs. He's not even making words anymore when he moans, just pleading noises and huffs of breath. "That's it, Jesse. That's good," Walt coaches, feeling Jesse's muscles pull tighter and tighter. He can't help but grind his own dick into Jesse's back to relieve some of the tension there.

Walt debates his next move for about one second before his other hand's wrapping around Jesse's cock and jerking him off. Jesse makes an unholy, ragged plea of want around Walt's name, reaching to clutch at Walt's wrist. Walt eases his finger in and out, filling him up each time. Jesse squirms and clenches around the digit, his cock impossibly tight in Walt's hand. Walt finds his prostate, strokes over it slow and easy until Jesse's sobbing out, "Mr. White, Mr. White," as he digs his fingers in and crests. His orgasm leaves him in thick, wet stripes over his t-shirt and on Walt's fingers. Yeah, Jesse's kind of messy when he comes, but Walt's totally into that.

Jesse makes blissed-out noises through the comedown. Walt strokes and jabs inside of him as long as he can, ghosts his thumb over the sensitive, sticky head of Jesse's dick. "Holy shit," Jesse sighs, squeezing his thighs together. "That was—it's never been like that before..."

"With age comes experience," Walt says, because he can't resist gloating a little. He's still rubbing over Jesse's entrance while Jesse shivers through the final throes of ecstasy. "That shirt's a goner, by the way."

"It's called laundry, yo. And I do it tomorrow anyway."

If Jesse's going to keep bucking his hips like this, he ought to put them to good use. "Get in my lap," Walt rasps out, shoving his dick into Jesse's back to emphasize the point.

Jesse sits up, his limbs loose and shaking as he crawls into Walt's lap. His knees nestle into the mattress on either side of Walt, then Jesse sinks down, slow, until they're pressed together. Walt lays his hands on Jesse's hips and pulls him in closer. "God..." he breathes out, and Jesse responds to that by grinding down on him. As Jesse's hips roll to wring out the aftershocks of his orgasm, Walt's slowly building up to his own, his cock hard and tight in his pants. Jesse bites his lip and tips his head back, makes a soft sound of contentment as he moves. Walt guides Jesse's hips with his hands, gives him nudges forward when he needs Jesse's ass to rub against his balls in a way that turns his nerve endings into tight strings.

"Jesse," Walt groans like he's in shambles. His fingers grasp at the hem of Jesse's t-shirt, because he can feel the clench of orgasm budding at the base of his spine.

"Don't worry," Jesse murmurs, his voice rough and gritty like the scrape of his stubble, "I'll get you off, Mr. White..."

 _God damn_ , Walt thinks, the rest of his thoughts drowned out by the bloom of pleasure in his gut. He can't remember a time he's been so fucking turned on, at least not in the past ten years; Jesse is doing wondrous things for his sex drive.

Walt's not even ready for it when it happens. Jesse's just rocking against him, grinding his ass on Walt's dick, and boom goes the dynamite. Walt clings to whatever he can—Jesse's shirt, his hips, his thighs—and completely loses it, coming hard in his underwear. He hears himself whispering, "Jesse," over and over, and everything's too shivery-good for him to care if that's embarrassing.

When Walt opens his eyes, Jesse's gazing down at him in curiousity. "Was that—was that okay?"

Like he didn't hear the unflattering noises Walt was making just moments ago. Walt sighs happily and slides his hands over Jesse's thighs. "Very okay."

That mangled half-sentence is totally worth seeing the way Jesse's face lights up at the praise. He nudges his hips into Walt's, and Walt sucks in a breath. Jesse glances down in realization. "Oh, those pants are probably goners too, huh?"

"It's called laundry," Walt says, sounding way more petulant in his own ears than he'd like.

Jesse dismounts on rubbery legs, tugs his shirt down a little, because even though he's had Walt's hands all over him he's still shy. He searches for his boxers on the floor. "You want the shower first?"

Walt turns his head to the side and watches Jesse step into his underwear. "I have a better idea." A ripple of want surges through his cock as he moves to get out of bed.

"Oh yeah?"

Walt stands up and wraps his hands around Jesse's wrists, preventing him from pulling his boxers over his hips. Jesse's cheeks flood with color. The heat of Jesse's skin seeps into Walt's fingertips. "Why don't we go together?"

Jesse's mouth drops open, like that's the hottest fucking thing he's ever heard. But Walt doesn't give him much choice, because he grabs the hem of Jesse's t-shirt and draws it over his head. Jesse just goes with it, trusting that this is something he wants enough to let Walt take the reins. Walt gets a good eyeful of the tattoo on Jesse's chest and feels the urge to follow it with his mouth.

But he waits until they're both under the hot spray of the water before becoming intimately acquainted with Jesse's tattoos.


	7. Chapter 7

Judging solely by their first night of clumsy sexual experimentation, Walt figures his sex life with Jesse will take off pretty well. After all, the first time is usually the worst, in a manner of speaking. Unfamiliarity with the other person's body, what they like, how they respond to touches and sounds... It's all uphill from there, right?

That doesn't seem to be the case with them, which Walt thinks is horrendously unfair. But it's probably some sort of karmic punishment for pushing too much too soon. Because apparently Jesse isn't ready for Walt's dick cleaving hot and wet inside of him.

"F—fuck," Jesse chokes out, his face smushed into the pillow while Walt's shoving into him with as much self-control as he possesses. But Jesse is so tight and hot around his cock, and the sounds he's making ought to be illegal. His body's a taut line of quivery tension that Walt can't help but drive into.

"Mr. White, I'm gonna—" Jesse doesn't get much further than that. He breaks apart, striping his stomach, the sheets, pretty much everything in the vicinity of his dick. Walt feels him clutch impossibly tight, and he holds on to Jesse's hips with all he's got. He matches the rhythm of his thrusts to the way Jesse's shoving back into him until his dick's forced out.

So much for the stamina of the young.

Jesse whines a shaky noise at the loss of Walt's dick inside of him. His body slackens, and he melts into the pillows, completely spent. Walt's still ridiculously hard, which he tries to remedy—or at least satiate—by rutting against the curve of Jesse's ass.

"Well, that was a satisfying three seconds," Walt huffs out.

"Fuck you, dude," Jesse mumbles. "Try having a huge dick in you and see how long it takes to blow your load."

"'Huge dick,' huh?" Because of course Walt's going to take that as a compliment. His cock slides along the slope of Jesse's lower back, and he bites back a moan.

Jesse groans, but it's muffled by the pillow. "I'm not in the habit of stickin' things up my ass, so, yeah, it's pretty huge." Walt smirks to himself and strokes a thumb over Jesse's opening. His hand's still slick from earlier when he'd primed Jesse with a finger or two before easing in. Jesse shakes under the touch, his nerves still hair-trigger sensitive, and he moans a sound of appreciation. "Mm, that's good," he sighs, nudging his hips into it.

"I want to come inside you," Walt says, and Jesse bucks back into Walt's hand, like the idea turns him on.

"Do whatever you want, dude, but that ain't happenin' tonight. I'm closed for assfucking."

Walt figured as much, but with the way Jesse's responding to the stroke of his thumb, maybe he can work something out. He jerks himself off in his other hand, careful to line up the head of his cock with where Jesse's flushed around his fingers. Walt's stamina is usually nothing to brag about, but at least he's got an excuse; with Jesse, though, it's so much easier to let go. It doesn't take Walt long to orgasm, his fingers holding Jesse open so he can shoot thick stripes of cum into him.

Jesse moans, surprised at the sensation, and he grinds his hips into it. "Fuckin' perv," he breathes out, but the words are laced with a dirty sort of satisfaction, as if this was something he wanted but didn't know how to ask for, didn't know he  _could_.

Walt's chest heaves for breath, lungs sucking in air like he's just run a dozen laps. But he manages to slip the blunt ends of two fingers into Jesse and push his orgasm deeper. Jesse's whole body shakes, and he grunts through his teeth, his throat choking out contented noises.

"Do you like this?" Walt asks, trying not to sound like a total virgin. "Is this easier for you?"

Jesse makes a sound Walt thinks is a yes. "Totally. I know you wanna fuck me, but you gotta wait 'til I can take it."

Walt's okay with that, because he wants Jesse to enjoy it. In the meantime, though, what they've got now is pretty damn great.

#

Walt tends to wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes because Jesse's sleep-talking has roused him, or because he needs to take a leak. Tonight it's the latter, because when he opens his eyes Jesse's vanished from the bed. But Walt doesn't worry too much until he gets to the bathroom door and finds it open, the inside dark and empty.  _Okaaaay_.

He checks the closet after he's finished, just in case Jesse's playing a frustrating game of hide and seek. Nada. Walt feels panic ball up in his throat. Did Jesse get the midnight munchies and go into town for a Taco Bell raid? Walt pushes back the curtains and peers out the window facing the front yard. The Chevy's still parked outside. Walt's heart leaps in fear for a split-second. Then he sees Jesse sitting in the truck bed, wrapped in a hoodie and breathing out plumes of smoke.

Relief washes over him. He pulls socks onto his feet, shoves them into his house shoes (which are absolutely  _not_  old-person shoes, Jesse), and throws a coat over his pajamas before stepping outside.

"Jesse?" he hisses into the night air.

Jesse sucks another puff off the cigarette before looking at Walt. "'Sup?"

"What are you doing?" Stupid question.

"Buildin' a space shuttle. What's it look like?"

Walt takes the sarcasm in stride and moves closer. "You're going to freeze to death out here," he says, his teeth chattering a bit.

"Well, you won't let me light up in the house, Adolf, so I gotta come out here to smoke."

Walt ignores that particular jab and climbs into the truck bed alongside Jesse. That's when he gets a good look at Jesse's face. His eyes are red-rimmed and watery, his nose rubbed raw. His cheeks are damp with salty tears. "Jesse, what's wrong?"

Jesse shakes his head. "Nothin', man." His voice shakes almost imperceptibly.

Walt slides an arm around Jesse's waist, tucking him up close. "Did you have a nightmare?"

Jesse takes another puff and breathes out the smoke. "I told you, it's nothin'."

"Doesn't seem like it," Walt says, reaching up with his free hand to brush a fresh tear away from Jesse's cheek.

Jesse sort of twists away from the touch before making a face like he hates himself for doing so. He sniffles and wipes his face.

Walt figures he's going to have to do the talking here, because Jesse tends to clam up when something's deeply troubling him. "If you tell me about it, maybe I can help."

Walt watches the curve of Jesse's throat as he swallows thickly. "You can't..." Jesse curls in on himself a little, his voice tiny and pathetic.

"Was it about something that happened to you?"

A beat, then Jesse gives a slight nod, his lower lip trembling. He takes a good, long puff, like the smoke might calm his nerves.

"Do you think you could tell me about it?"

Jesse opens his mouth like he's going to say something, then, as if reconsidering, closes it again. "I'm such an idiot..."

Walt shuts his eyes in pain. "No, you're not, Jesse." God, he wishes he could take it all back, all the times he lashed out at Jesse in frustration. Was it really worth the momentary relief Walt felt each time he snapped at him and growled things like "pathetic junkie" under his breath or attacked Jesse's intelligence?

One look at Jesse now says, no, it wasn't. Not by a long shot.

Jesse shakes his head and says, "I am. I'm so stupid... I shouldn't have—I should'a said no when you asked me to move in with you, 'cause I don't—I don't know how I'm gonna make it when you're gone." He barely gets the words out without half-choked sobs around them.

Walt sighs, because he gets it now. He holds Jesse tighter in his arms, and Jesse seems to crumble under the embrace. "I'm still in remission, Jesse. I'm healthy."

"You haven't been to the doctor since we moved here. What if—what if it came back? You've been coughing a lot..."

"It's the dry air," Walt says. "The elevation level here is much different than what we're used to. As elevation climbs, the amount of oxygen in the air decreases, which makes it more difficult to breathe. You're young, so you wouldn't have any trouble, of course. But older people, people with compromised lungs..." He trails off, hoping Jesse can connect the dots.

Jesse's brow creases, like he wants to accept Walt's explanation but feels like there's something more to it. "Even if the cancer doesn't come back, you're still gonna die before me. Like, way before me."

Walt nods and holds him closer. "I am, and there's no way you'll ever be ready for it. But you have to be strong, Jesse, and I know you can be. You've bounced back from things like this before." This is the closest they've come to talking about Jane since that day in the lab.

"'Cause I had you."

"And when I'm gone you'll have someone else to help you through it. You won't be left alone. I promise."

Jesse taps out the ash from his cigarette onto the snow beneath his feet. "Have you ever lost somebody?"

Walt nods solemnly. "My father. I was about four or five. I only have one real memory of him, and it's..." Walt shakes his head and trails off. "Well, it's not how I would want you to remember me." He stares up at the stars. "If something happens, if the cancer does come back, I want to enjoy the time I have left."

Jesse picks up on the subtext there. "So you're not gonna do chemo?"

"I've been down that road before. I was miserable. What good is being alive if I can't really  _live_?"

"Whoa, deep," Jesse says, trying to lighten the moment, but he doesn't argue or try to change Walt's mind. Walt half-smiles. Of course Jesse would understand, having witnessed the effects of chemotherapy first-hand with his aunt. He wouldn't want Walt to suffer through that again.

"But that means I need you here with me." Walt plucks the cigarette from Jesse's thin fingers and drops it onto the snow.

Jesse makes a frustrated noise. "Dick."

Walt watches the orange tip of ash extinguish against the ice. "You're not the only one who doesn't want to be alone."

#

The summer months begin to melt the snow, bringing with them a crispness to the air. Leaves bloom on the trees. Vivid green grass sprouts from the earth. It's times like these Walt really wishes they had a second car. He thought he'd cherish the solitude here, having yearned to disconnect from a world too loud and bright and busy for him back in Albuquerque. Maybe, he'd reasoned, he'd write the next Great American Novel with all his free time.

That worked out about as well as a moon landing orchestrated by ants. He thinks his brain cells are corroding, rusting over with disuse. If it weren't for the occasional library and bookstore trips with Jesse, Walt fears his brain would have turned into pudding long ago. Their quaint little home feels less like a retreat and more like solitary confinement.

So on their next excursion into town for groceries, Walt loiters around the display of local brochures, Greensheets, and Apartment Hunters near the sliding doors while Jesse's on the other side of the cart lobby feeding quarters into a claw machine game. He leafs through the selection of advertisements for ritzy golf courses, family vacation ideas, kayaking and canoeing trails, beaches and resorts on the seacoast...

"C'mon, just grab the damn handle," Jesse grumbles. Walt glances over at him. Jesse's distracted, trying to win some plastic toy out of the machine; Walt's vacation planning will go entirely unnoticed. "No, no, don't you dare fall! I will set you on fire!"

One of the brochures for a beach resort snags Walt's eye, because the map printed on the back shows that the property is within reasonable driving distance. A couple hours on the road and they'd make it with plenty of daylight to spare. They could rent a cottage or a townhouse for a week, enjoy a luxurious ocean view and all the amenities.

Walt's totally doing this; he's got money, time, and he's overdue for a grand gesture.

"Yes!" Jesse shouts. "I am the claw master, bitch!" Walt looks over to see Jesse punching straight into the air like an actual child. He tucks the brochure into his pocket as Jesse starts toward him, a spring in his step and prize in hand. "Yo, Mr. White, I told you I could grab it!" Jesse holds up the toy—a Dr. Doom bobblehead—so Walt can see the fruits of his labor. There's a thin plastic handle taped onto the box, probably to make it easier for the claw to snag. "And it only cost me fifty cents! These things are, like, ten bucks normally."

Walt smiles at Jesse's childlike glee. "Since you saved nine-fifty, are you going to buy me lunch?"

Jesse wrinkles his nose. "That's a pricey-ass lunch."

"I think you can afford it," Walt says with a shrug. He grins to himself when Jesse makes a disgusted noise. Jesse has no idea what Walt's planning for them.

#

Jesse's cuddled into Walt's chest a few nights later when Walt murmurs, "Jesse?"

Jesse hums a sound of acknowledgement over Walt's skin.

"Do you think it might be possible at all for you to get a week or so off work?"

"Oh, you got somethin' planned?" Jesse asks, mischief in his voice.

Walt threads his fingers through Jesse's hair. "I suppose that depends on your availability."

Jesse stretches his legs out in the bed. "Then, yeah, totally. What week you need me?"

Walt reaches behind his head with his free hand to grab his phone off of the night table. He flicks on the calendar and analyzes the dates. They're nearing the end of May, so Walt thinks sometime in the middle of June will be perfect. "How about this one?" He points to a spot on the calendar.

Jesse cranes his neck so he can see better. "Yeah, that's good. I can do that." He lies his head down on Walt's chest again after Walt switches the screen off. "You gonna tell me what you got planned?"

"I prefer the element of surprise."

"Yeah, you would, Mr. Periodic Table."

It takes Walt a moment, then he's chuckling, because, wow, Jesse actually made a decent joke.

Jesse grins like he's done something good. "Not even a hint?"

"I think it will be worth the wait."

"You are straight-up evil, you know that?" Jesse grumbles.

Walt nods as if this isn't the first time he's heard this. "You'll see."

Jesse's quiet for a moment, then: "So is it, like, a vacation?"

"Jesse."

"Is it out-of-state?"

"I'm not telling you."

"Is it in New Hampshire?"

"Jesse, go to sleep."

#

Walt wakes up bright and early on the morning of the start of their vacation. Jesse's got his nose in a book, his back facing Walt. Walt makes a futile attempt to catch the words on the pages, but he can't make sense of them from this distance without his glasses. He drapes an arm over the bare curve of Jesse's hip, and Jesse jumps at the touch, losing his place in the book as it drops out of his hands and onto the floor.

"Shit," Jesse mumbles around laughter, because Walt's fingertips tickle as they graze across his stomach.

Walt tugs him in closer so Jesse's back is pressed along the line of Walt's body. Jesse's warm against him, fitting perfectly into the space between them like interlocking puzzle pieces. He presses kisses over Jesse's speckled shoulder blades. "How long have you been awake?"

Jesse shrugs, wriggles into the press of Walt's mouth. "Dunno. I couldn't get back to sleep."

"Bad dream?"

"Too excited." The wry little smile on Jesse's lips is audible.

Walt chuckles low in his throat and holds Jesse tighter. "I think you'll be pleased."

"I better be. If you got my hopes up for somethin' lame I'm breaking up with you."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Test me, yo. I'm dead serious."

Walt smiles to himself. "Well, I won't have to, because I know you'll like your surprise."

"You're Mr. Confident today, huh?" Jesse rolls over so he's lying on his back. Walt admires the tattoo etched over his chest, brushes his thumb over the ink. Jesse watches the glide of Walt's hand and wets his lips, his teeth capturing his bottom lip when Walt's thumb strokes over a nipple. Walt pinches the bud between his fingers and watches the way Jesse's face reacts to the squeeze. Jesse makes a soft noise of want in his throat.

Walt lays kisses down the line of Jesse's stomach, because if he's got this much of Jesse's naked skin before him he might as well take the time to admire it. Jesse writhes under his mouth, his hands sliding over Walt's shoulders and around the back of his head. Walt dips his tongue into Jesse's navel before kissing the jut of his hip bone and the inside of his bare thigh. Jesse squirms and sucks in a breath through his teeth.

Walt takes his time here, because Jesse's body is his alone to touch, and he's a little sluggish in the morning anyway. Jesse doesn't seem to mind, making contented little noises against the air as Walt's lips travel over his skin. Walt breathes hot between Jesse's legs, and Jesse goes impossibly hard, cock tight against his belly. Walt wants to run his tongue over the vein on the underside of Jesse's dick, just to see what Jesse might do.

He climbs his way up Jesse's body just enough to wrap a hand around Jesse's dick and take the head into his mouth. Jesse gasps, his lungs shuddering like they've run out of air. His fingers go tight over Walt's scalp. Jesse tastes bitter and sweet on Walt's tongue, just like Walt imagined he would. He hums around the swollen head of Jesse's cock, making Jesse arch and ache. Jesse tilts his hips up, seeking the wet heat of Walt's throat, and Walt rejoices in his command over Jesse's body, because, yeah, he's a control freak. The fact that Jesse wants and needs him here fuels the fire of Walt's ego.

Jesse twists under Walt's mouth and makes a helpless noise when Walt's beard scrapes along his inner thigh. His toes curl, legs sliding in the sheets as Walt grants him ecstasy. He mewls out a whimper of, "Mr. White," and his hands curl into fists against Walt's head. Jesse's swearing soft little curses in his throat, and Walt's slow, gentle sucks finally break him apart, his hips bucking into Walt's mouth. Walt swallows all he can, hungry for the taste, because if he wants Jesse to do this for him someday he ought to do a damn good job.

Jesse's chest shudders from the force of his orgasm. Walt's still got the head of Jesse's dick between his lips, careful now that Jesse's much more sensitive to each twirl of Walt's tongue. Having Jesse at his mercy, shivering and begging for release... Walt could totally get used to this.

"Shit," Jesse breathes out, spreading a palm over the back of Walt's head. "That was awesome. Was that part of the surprise?"

"Maybe," Walt says, lifting his head so he can look at Jesse all flushed and satisfied. "Or maybe I thought I'd be spontaneous."

"Bullshit. You've never been spontaneous. You probably plan out every time you take a piss."

Walt thinks that's a little much. "We have new identities, don't we? Maybe being more spontaneous is part of mine."

Jesse's hands slide over the top of Walt's back in an oddly intimate gesture. His face goes soft. "But I like  _you_. Yeah, you got a lot of shit that drives me up the fuckin' wall, but it goes both ways, y'know?"

Right here, in this moment, Walt can't think of anything about Jesse he'd want to change.

"I don't see the harm in being a little unpredictable every once in a while," Walt says. "Especially in the bedroom."

Jesse smiles. "Sure, if we're just talkin' about sex, hell yeah. Have at it."

Walt sits up between Jesse's legs, peering down at him. "I'd love to, but I'm not as young as you are. My days of simply 'having at it' are over." He cups his hands around Jesse's thighs. "You still have time, you know, to reconsider. To find someone better for you."

"Okay, this mopey old man stuff? You can  _totally_  change that," Jesse says, shifting his hips against the sheets so he can sit up. "Aren't old dudes who bang twenty-year-olds supposed be happy about it?"

Walt's fucking  _ecstatic_  about it, because Jesse makes his body soar and sing as if every nerve ending is a live wire. But, God, it all just feels like a car crash waiting to happen, one more way for Walt to twist and warp Jesse's life into tragedy.

"I am happy," Walt says, hearing the frustration there.

"Yeah, that's convincing."

Walt wishes there was a series of words that could convey his distress. He'd been so thrilled to finally have Jesse for himself, but as time passed Walt fell deeper in love with him, and love, in its purest form, is unselfish. How can he claim to love Jesse when he hurts him like this?

"I want to be able to give you things, not take them away from you," Walt says instead, because he doesn't think Jesse can visualize how their lives might be in the future. "Just by a purely mathematical standpoint, I have twenty-five years of my life that I can't promise you. I can't promise you a fulfilling sex life, because I won't always be able to, uh, perform. This is as good as it's going to get with me."

Jesse's brow creases, and Walt wants to smooth away the frown line between his eyebrows. "I can't promise you anything either. I could drop dead tomorrow, y'know? Jane was my age, and she couldn't—" Jesse stops himself, rubs a hand over his face, and Walt flinches at the memory.

"You have a history of loving the wrong things, Jesse."

The pained look on Jesse's face makes Walt immediately regret his words. "You think you're one of them?"

"I know I am." Walter White is the worst thing that's ever happened to Jesse, but Jesse doesn't have the good sense to see it. The unselfish part of him wants to tell Jesse the truth about Jane, just to push him away and give him a chance at a better life that he won't take himself. But the selfish part of Walt bleeds into everything else and wants desperately to keep Jesse by his side.

Jesse shakes his head and breathes out in aggravation. He fixes his gaze on Walt, sincere with an edge of defiance. "I don't care. You make me happy. Bein' here with you, away from all that bullshit, living a normal life... Do you even know how awesome that is? I could totally do this forever."

Walt wishes they had that long, but now each passing second counts more than ever. He's not going to waste time on hopelessness. Jesse's here with him now— _wants_  to be here—and that's what matters.

"Then let's get started. We've got a long drive ahead of us."


	8. Chapter 8

"Okay, you've had the radio for, like, three hours. Can it be my turn now?" Jesse whines, sprawled low in the passenger seat of the truck and thumping his head against the window.

Walt bites down on an aggravated noise, but it seems fair for Jesse to take over the music for the second half of the drive. That doesn't mean Walt has to be happy about it. "Fine. Just let me make a pit stop first," he says, taking the next exit for the nearest gas station.

Jesse bangs his head against the glass again and groans. "God, seriously? How many times have you had to take a leak since we started? Like, a thousand?"

Walt scoffs. "That's a gross exaggeration, Jesse."

"You should get that checked out."

Walt glares at him. "I'm not stopping for me. We need gas." The truck sidles up alongside a vacant pump.

"Sure," Jesse says, disbelief oozing from his tone. "Y'know that could be serious. My dad knew a guy who peed a lot. Turns out his prostate got, like, super huge from cancer or some shit—"

Walt slams the driver's door closed to shut Jesse up, because he's totally a mature adult.

#

Walt's loathe to admit it, but Jesse's taste in music isn't entirely terrible—at least not what's pumping through the Chevy's weathered speakers. It sounds like something he'd hear blaring out of Junior's headphones. Walt lets his mind wander, thinks about what his son might be doing now; did Skyler take him and Holly on a vacation, eager to escape the haunting walls of their once-home?

Wow, the mood in the truck just dropped about thirty feet. Walt's distress must be evident on his face, because Jesse glances at him and does a double take. "What's up? You want me to change it?"

"You don't have to."

Jesse reaches over anyway and presses one of the preset buttons. Walt isn't familiar with this song either—feeling out-of-touch is going to be a  _thing_  in this relationship, he can just feel it—but Jesse seems to know the words, silently mouthing along as he tips his head back to gaze out the window.

"I know it's probably pointless to ask," Jesse says, "but are we ever gonna get where we're goin'?"

"It's only an hour or two more, Jesse. Patience is a virtue."

"Why can't 'hurry the fuck up' be a virtue?" Jesse tosses him a skeptical glance. "Do you even know how to get there?"

"Yes, I'm quite capable of reading a map."

"Really? 'Cause I think you're lost and just don't wanna admit it." Jesse digs into the bag at his feet for the package of gummy worms he picked up on their last gas station stop. "Which, y'know, whatever. I know you got your pride, but seriously."

"If this is your attempt to trick me into telling you where we're going, it's not working."

Jesse drops his head back against the headrest. "God damn it."

#

It's around three in the afternoon when they're driving along the coast, passing by a collection of stately townhomes and cottages. The resort on the horizon isn't obvious at first, at least not until the sparkling azure pool comes into view, the sun's rays bouncing off of the waves.

Jesse stares out the window in awe. "Whoa, look at that place!"

Walt smiles knowingly. "Big, huh?"

"Yeah, it'd be awesome to—" Jesse's train of thought screeches to a halt, because the truck slows when they near the parking lot. "Yo, is this—is this where we're stayin'?" He breathes out a shaky little laugh of disbelief, like there's no way Walt could possibly be this cool.

Walt parks in front of the lobby building and looks at Jesse. "I told you it was a surprise."

The pure, unadulterated joy on Jesse's face is worth every second leading up to this moment. "No way! Are you serious?" Jesse looks at the building again, then back to Walt. "You're not just, like, stoppin' in here to pee? This is for real?"

"Absolutely for real."

Jesse's eyes twinkle like he's just witnessed the second coming of Jesus. "Oh my God, you're the best!"

Walt smiles to himself, because, yes, he  _is_  the best, thank you very much. But he pretends to be humble. "I wouldn't go  _that_  far..."

"Dude, my parents never even took me to the beach. This is so cool!"

Walt raises his eyebrows. "Never? You at least know how to swim, don't you?"

"Of course I know how to swim," Jesse says, rolling his eyes. "They have pools in Albuquerque, y'know."

"Yes, I think I'm well-acquainted with that concept."

"So don't worry, you won't have to play  _Baywatch_  and save me from drowning."

"Even if I look damn good in a Speedo?"

Jesse makes a face and goes silent for a moment. Then he opens the passenger door. "I'm totally gonna pretend you never said that."

Yeah, that's probably for the best.

They check in and pick up the room keys. Their accommodation for the week isn't some run-of-the-mill hotel room, but rather a cottage rental. The beachside cottages sit along a small stretch of sand, and the resort proper is nested in the expanse of land to the right where the beach widens out. There's handfuls of sunbathers and children building sandcastles. Some distance away, a group is gathered around a volleyball net, serving the ball back and forth.

Walt and Jesse walk over the quilt of smooth pebbles and sand leading up to the entrance. They climb the two small steps onto the deck. Walt unlocks the door, and they go inside.

Their room is infinitely more impressive than the pictures were. A large patio with sliding glass doors opens up to the sand and the glistening waves. The walls and ceiling are two-toned beige and soothing, pale-patterned wallpaper. Under their feet, the carpet is a greenish-blue color. A huge bed juts out from the wall, covered in elegant, off-white bedding with accents of sea green. The furniture—a headboard, chairs, night table, a small clothes dresser—is all warm, matching mahogany. There's a few framed paintings on the walls of lighthouses, seashells, and flowers.

One word: harmonious. They're simultaneously surrounded by people yet in their own little world. It's a huge step up from their cabin back home.

Jesse's face lights up as he takes it all in. "I can't believe we live here!"

"Well, only for a week," Walt reminds him.

Jesse frowns. "When'd you graduate from Buzzkill University?"

"I wasn't just a student; I was faculty."

"So that's where you taught chemistry?"

Walt smirks.

Jesse smooths his hands over the bed before hopping onto the mattress. He spreads his arms like he's making a snow angel. "Dude, this bed is, like, the size of a car!"

"And we're so used to consolidating," Walt says, stepping into the path of the brilliant sun. He sets their bags down on a nearby chair. "What'll we do with all that extra space?"

Jesse sits up and gives him a wide, gleaming smile, like there's nothing else in the world but them. "You need ideas?"

"Wait 'til you see the jacuzzi, at least."

Jesse's eyes widen. "There's a jacuzzi in our room?"

Walt nods. "Having second thoughts about that Speedo?"

"Don't push your luck, Mr. White."

#

Walt's surprised he's not tired that night. It must be the new surroundings keeping him alert, the distant roar of the tide lapping against the shore. He climbs out of bed, careful not to wake Jesse, and slides open the glass door to the porch. The air is crisp with sea salt, warm and fragrant. Walt takes a deep breath and lets it nourish his lungs. The crowd on the beach has thinned out, but there's still a few people milling about on the sand. Walt leans on the railing, gazes at the sheen of moonlight on the waves.

It seems like he's always yearning for the sun and sand, longing for a home that feels like home. He doesn't miss the swelter of the desert, but he wants something familiar. There's enough sand here to mimic the cracked plains of Albuquerque, and in days that feel like a past life he'd wriggled his toes in the sand and slumbered on fresh white sheets in summer cottages. Walt feels worlds away from it all yet still strangely connected to the life he left behind.

There's something here that calls to him, draws him closer like a tether in his middle. Something similar to the magnetic pull he feels around Jesse.

The sound of the door sliding open makes him turn his head. Jesse's standing there in an oversized t-shirt and boxers, his eyes half-lidded. "Can't sleep?"

"I'm not tired," Walt says simply, looking out at the moon's white trail across the water.

Jesse rubs a hand through his hair. "For real? Man, shit like this puts me to sleep."

Walt's brow furrows. "Like what?" He glances over at Jesse, sees the way the planes of his face gleam in the moonlight.

"The ocean." Jesse slides the door shut and joins Walt along the railing. "After she got sick, my aunt couldn't sleep without those tapes that play, like, water sounds. Y'know, like rain or the beach or whatever. Every now and then she'd sleep out in the living room if she couldn't make it up to her room, and I'd hear it when I went downstairs for a drink in the middle of the night. Sometimes I could hear it through the walls, 'cause her room was right next to mine."

 _Congratu-fucking-lations, Walt, you've dredged up another bad memory._  What will he do for an encore, drown a sack of puppies?

"I'm sorry," is all he can think to say.

Jesse shrugs like it's nothing. "I'm not as fragile as you think, Mr. White," he says, as if he's just realizing it himself. He seems to get lost in the calm of the surf, gazing out at the sparkling waves.

After a minute of comfortable silence, Walt asks, "Take a walk with me?"

Jesse doesn't hesitate, just follows Walt onto the soft, white sand. "We goin' somewhere?"

"Does there always need to be a destination? Can't you just enjoy the journey?"

"Okay, calm down, Plato."

Walt feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. "You actually paid attention in Philosophy?"

"More than I did in your class."

"I thought we didn't know each other," Walt reminds him.

Jesse snorts a laugh, kicks at a pebble on the sand. "Man, I stopped playing that game, like, ages ago. I was just tryin' to get you to talk more."

"What about?"

"I dunno, whatever. I'm sure you got nice memories of somethin'. It doesn't have to be all dark and drab, right?"

Yeah, Walt hasn't exactly been a shining pinnacle of positivity in the bits of himself he shares with Jesse. He ought to change that. He slows his pace as he speaks. "I do have happy memories. But most of them are bittersweet now."

Jesse sighs like Walt's being difficult. He steps along the shoreline, and the waves slosh over his feet. "So, what, just 'cause you don't have somethin' anymore means it never made you happy to begin with?"

"Calm down, Plato."

Jesse grins and shakes his head. His t-shirt sways in the light breeze. "I know what you mean, though. Some of my happiest memories are with Jane."

Jesse lets that one hang in the air. Walt's throat tightens with all the words he's never said. Jesse takes Walt's hand in his own and twines their fingers together, squeezing like he's afraid of losing Walt too. Walt squeezes back. He doesn't care if that says he's never letting go or that he's just as scared as Jesse.

Jesse lets Walt lead him as they walk. The sand is warm and powder-fine under Walt's feet. "So how'd you come up with this?" Jesse asks. "You don't really seem like a beachy guy."

Walt figures there's no harm in telling the story; it might inspire Jesse to share one of his own. In for a penny, in for a pound. Or something. "Before I met Skyler, I was in a relationship with a brilliant, beautiful woman. Her parents owned a summer cottage a little further north than we are right now. So every summer I would spend a week or two with her in that little home by the coast. It was luxurious, totally extravagant. More bedrooms that you'd know what to do with."

"So  _she_  dumped  _you_ , right? 'Cause that sounds fuckin' sweet."

Walt smiles sadly, glancing off at the midnight water. "We had our differences." That sentence is rigged to blow, but Jesse doesn't hear it, or maybe he simply chooses to ignore it. "But I enjoyed the atmosphere there, and I thought you might too."

"Yeah, this place is dope. You have good taste sometimes."

They fall into bed a little after four a.m., and it just kind of...happens. They're kissing slack and slow, shirts discarded on the floor, until Walt decides he wants to be nearer, and Jesse doesn't push him away or show any signs of hesitance, just kisses him harder with hot breath and an eager tongue. Walt moans, "Jesse," around his mouth, feels Jesse's thighs open underneath him. He grinds into the space there, and Jesse hooks his legs around Walt's hips to bring him closer. Warm hands push into Walt's sweatpants and tug them down. Jesse's fingers hook in the waistband of his underwear, pulling them over his hips.

Walt's bare skin is sensitive under Jesse's touch, more than he's used to. Jesse tilts his head to kiss him again, this time at a different angle, and Walt palms him through his boxers, making him squirm in the sheets. Jesse breathes out a shaky sound and curls his fingers over Walt's skin. Walt decides to just go for it, takes the rest of Jesse's clothes off. It's not the first time Jesse's been naked with him, but Walt watches the pulse jump in Jesse's throat, and he can't resist kissing it and feeling the heartbeat there.

Jesse takes the back of Walt's head in his hand, his tattooed arm crawling over Walt's spine. Walt digs in the drawer of the night table for the bottle of lube he'd stashed there when he unpacked. He coats his dick with the oil, glances down to see Jesse's already hard and red. Jesse angles his hips so Walt can push his way in. His mouth opens around a shuddery breath, head tipping back against the pillows. He draws one knee back to make the slide easier, but Walt's already buried deep inside of him, and he rolls his hips, slow and steady, trying to build an easy rhythm.

Walt doesn't have to try very hard, because Jesse's moving with him, grinding into Walt's dick each time he pushes in. Jesse's nails scrape over his skin, and he gasps, "Mr. White," around a kiss. Walt swallows the words, his mouth covering Jesse's in hungry kisses while their hips move together in unhurried tandem. Jesse's mouth pours out praises around their kisses, and as Walt pushes Jesse pulls, making the pressure build and blaze. Jesse's hands drag down Walt's spine, muscles tightly wound in need. It's almost too much for Walt to take; he thinks he might burn up from the twist of white-hot heat in his belly, like a star hurtling toward the earth. This could last forever and it still wouldn't be enough.

Neither of them last very long, though, but Walt doesn't even care. They've got nothing but time to build up a tolerance to each other's touch, to make their orgasms achingly slow and sweet.

Jesse tenses around Walt's cock, and he falls apart with a stutter-shout, his eyes squeezed shut while grateful moans spill from his lips. He bucks feverishly into the shove of Walt's hips. Walt grunts into Jesse's shoulder, his fingers knotted in Jesse's hair as he tries to match their new, frantic rhythm. His next thrust marks the end of the world; Walt crumbles, pouring hot inside of Jesse as the universe shifts beneath him. Jesse kisses the sounds out of his mouth, and they piece each other back together.

Walt feels shaky and loose, like his atoms have been broken apart by the sheer force of his climax. Jesse is a force of nature, not to be tempered, just experienced and enjoyed. If what they have together isn't chemistry, Walt doesn't know the meaning of the word anymore; Jesse has changed him irrevocably, left his mark on every cell in Walt's body. Gazing down at Jesse's flushed, awed face, all the lines keeping Walt tethered to his old life seem to sever, as if sliced apart with a blade. Jesse now ties Walt to the center of the universe, and Walt knows nothing could ever cut these new strings keeping him here now.

_Growth. Decay. Transformation._

#

The sun wakes Walt up the next morning, warm on his face and the bare skin of his shoulders. He's content to just lie there with his eyes closed, listening to the distant rush of the waves. He stretches out in the bed, spreading his legs as far as he can without disturbing Jesse. There's a hell of a lot of empty space in the bed, Walt realizes, which probably means Jesse's gone.

Walt reaches a tired arm out for the clock on the night table and frowns at the blank display. Jesse must have unplugged it to charge his phone. Walt scans the tabletop for the phone but doesn't find it.

A crinkling sound to his left makes him roll onto his other side. Jesse's sitting cross-legged in a plush chair by the patio door, reading something on his phone. There's an open bag of potato chips in the space between his legs. Jesse must feel Walt's eyes on him, because he turns his head and smiles. "Morning. How'd you sleep?" His hair is splayed in all directions, his t-shirt loose and wrinkled. He looks like well-fucked hobo garbage.

Walt stretches out again. "Good. Very good, actually."

"I know, right? That mattress rules. It's like sleepin' on a cloud."

"I'm sure the company had nothing to do with it," Walt says with a smirk.

Jesse's cheeks flush. "You sleep with me all the time."

"Not like that."

Jesse rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "Yeah, not like that," he murmurs, a small smile at the corner of his lips. "That was awesome."

"Really? Did it inspire awe?"

Jesse rises from the chair and moves over to the bed, dropping beside Walt on the mattress. "Why don't you tell me?" Jesse tips his head down and kisses him. Walt tastes the salt on his lips.

"Potato chips for breakfast?" he asks when they break apart, condescension leaking into his tone.

"Breakfast of champions, yo."

"I think that's Wheaties."

"Whatever. I was gonna starve if I waited on your old ass."

"Is that any way to talk to your boyfriend?"

Jesse smiles, his nose wrinkling a little. "So now you're my  _boyfriend_?"

It takes Walt a moment to recognize the humor there; they've never referred to each other that way before. Walt had always known they were  _something_ , but what that was seemed to change and evolve with time.

"What happened to fifty-fifty partners?" Jesse asks.

 _Orgasms happened_ , Walt thinks, but he keeps that thought to himself. "Fifty-fifty implies we're not enjoying anything at its fullest because it has to be shared equally. Last night..." Walt slides an arm around Jesse's waist and draws him in closer. "Did you feel your enjoyment was divided between us? Or did you experience the whole of it?"

Jesse wets his lips, and if he's remembering things with the same clarity Walt is, he knows there's no way they're splitting anything down the middle. Not anymore. "If—if that was just half, I wonder what a hundred percent is like."

Walt's other hand conforms to the curve of Jesse's cheek, fingers curled around the back of his neck and bringing his mouth to Walt's own. "We have a whole week to find out," he murmurs around the kiss.

#

By the time they're finished pawing at each other like teenagers, the breakfast buffet in the dining hall is over. Which doesn't bother Walt too much, because he'd rather have Jesse shaking and groaning beneath him than a buffet. Besides, there's always lunch.

Jesse's spread out on the bed, lying under the sheets and flipping through the resort's activities guide while Walt's getting dressed. "Dude, you know they have hermit crab races here?" Jesse snorts a laugh. "And there's a Wii tournament! I am unstoppable at Mario Kart, oh my God. I am so winning us that $50 dinner gift card."

"You realize you're probably going to be the only adult competing, right?"

Jesse throws a hand out as if to say, "So?"

"You'd really break those kids' spirits for a gift card?"

"When lobster costs fifteen bucks here, hell yeah. The stuff on the kids' menu is cheap anyway. They'll be fine."

Walt snickers, buttoning his shirt. "I thought you loved kids."

"Know what else I love? Winning. And free food."

Walt gives him a curious look and moves closer. He lays a hand on Jesse's sheet-covered knee, slides it down the slope of his thigh. Jesse glances at him over the brochure. "Am I on that list at all?" Walt asks.

Jesse grins, too clever to fall for the bait. "You're on your own list," he says with a sweet smile before switching his gaze to the activities book. His nose wrinkles in disgust. "'Fun clowns'? When have clowns ever been  _fun_  and not terrifying?"

"Before Grimaldi came along and ruined it for everyone," Walt says matter-of-factly, stuffing his phone into the pocket of his shorts. Jesse gives him a blank look. "Grimaldi was a street performer in 1802 who started the modern aesthetic of clowns as we know them today—garish make-up and oversized baby clothes. Then Charles Dickens wrote  _The Pickwick Papers_  based off the idea of a tragic, dark clown. After Grimaldi died, Dickens edited his memoirs and made that dark, frightening version of clowns more popular."

Jesse's mouth turns up at the corner into a half-smile. "Why do you even know this shit?"

"I read a lot," Walt says, like his knowledge of obscure clown-related trivia isn't weird at all. "Pick up a  _Reader's Digest_  sometime. You'll learn something."

Jesse rolls his eyes.

"But I suppose most of our innate fear of clowns comes from what they might be hiding," Walt continues. "The painted expression is like a mask, and we get scared when we can't distinguish a person's features or read their face."

"And Tim Curry is scary as fuck in clown make-up."

Walt makes a face. "That movie was terrible."

"Not when you're a kid and you're watching it at, like, midnight."

Walt shrugs because, yeah, that's a pretty valid argument. "Also,  _Pagliacci_  was the story of a clown who murdered his wife."

"Was she a clown too? 'Cause that would take us full circle back to funny."

"This is one of the most bizarre conversations I've ever had with you," Walt says.

Jesse smiles like he's proud of himself, and Walt feels his heart swell.

They have lunch in the outdoor terrace underneath the shade of giant umbrellas. Jesse's sipping some fruity orange drink because he's secretly a twelve-year-old girl when it comes to alcoholic beverages; Walt sticks with beer like a respectable adult.

"So tomorrow night is movie night," Jesse says, toying with the miniature umbrella in his drink. "They hang a huge-ass screen over the pool, so it's like a drive-in but without the driving part. Guess what the movie is?"

Walt tips his head inquisitively.

" _Jaws_." Jesse laughs. "Whoever was in charge of that might be an evil genius. But I guess there's not a lot of water-related movies to choose from."

" _Waterworld_ ," Walt says, trying to be helpful.

"That movie sucks though." Jesse pauses, the straw between his lips. "Oh my God, what if Jaws was a clownshark? That's how you make clowns funny! Put a shark in make-up and a rainbow wig and a weird polka-dot onesie!"

"I think that was the original plot for  _Jaws 3D_ ," Walt says with an impossibly straight face.

Jesse's eyes go wide. "For real?" Walt struggles not to laugh. "Oh, dude, there's a trivia contest tonight with cash prizes. We should totally partner up! You know science and history and shit, I know pop culture!"

It's a mirror of Walt's original proposition that set their lives on the same track. But this time it's not damnation, and, God, Walt wants it, because Jesse's childlike excitement is hard to deny. "We do make a pretty good team."

"The best," Jesse says, smiling, and any doubts Walt ever had about them crumble into dust.


	9. Chapter 9

Jesse's still riding the adrenaline high of victory when they get back to their room that night after the trivia contest. "We should go on game shows for a living and just rack up the cash," he says, flopping onto the bed. "We'd be unstoppable."

"Most game shows don't let you work with someone else," Walt says.

" _Family Feud_  does. And  _Let's Make a Deal_. Oh, and  _Supermarket Sweep_."

Walt's brow furrows. " _Supermarket Sweep_  hasn't been on in, what, eight years?"

Jesse shrugs as if conceding. "Okay, well,  _Millionaire_  lets you phone a friend. And we did pretty boss on our own tonight. I could totally see you as returning champ on  _Jeopardy!_ "

Walt smiles. "You weren't so bad yourself." He's fairly certain Jesse threw out answers to a couple chemistry questions solely to impress Walt. And it worked, because Walt's charmed as fuck. It doesn't hurt that they're each fifty bucks richer either. "But if you knew as much about math or chemistry as you do about comic books and  _Star Trek_..."

"Yeah, but then if we ever got a question about comics we'd be totally screwed," Jesse says, sitting up so he can gaze at Walt. "We work better this way. Y'know that Paula Abdul song 'Opposites Attract'?"

Walt gives him a flat stare. "You don't get to criticize my taste in music anymore."

"Mr. White," Jesse whines, leaning back on his hands and looking out the window at the calm water. The beach is mostly vacant now, and Walt wishes they could just start walking along the coast and never stop, stroll endlessly under the starry night sky with the waves lapping at their feet.

Jesse gets restless, stands up and pulls his t-shirt over his head, now clad in only his Superman swim shorts. "You wanna swim?" he asks, his hand on the door handle. "There's nobody out there, if you're shy."

Walt snorts. "Shy? Jesse, this"—he plucks at his shirt—"is for your benefit. If I take my shirt off, you may have to fight off the hordes of admirers."

Jesse throws his head back and laughs. Then he catches a glimpse of Walt's expression. "Oh, shit, you were totally serious." He snickers and slips the buttons out of their clasps. "Well, c'mon, Fabio, try not to dazzle anyone with your awesome pecs." There's a healthy dose of sarcasm there, Walt thinks, and he's a little offended. You take a guy into your home to live and love with and give him an extravagant vacation and what do you get? Endless fucking lip.

Walt tosses his shirt over the back of a chair and follows Jesse onto the powdery sand. Their footsteps don't even make a sound, like they're walking over clouds. Jesse's hand is soft in Walt's own as they walk together. The beach is indeed rather empty, with only a few people gathered around the volleyball nets some ways away, and one or two others lying on beach chairs with white earphone cords dangling.

Jesse walks to the water's edge and lets the swells break over his toes. "It's warm," he says, trying to coax Walt into the water. Walt allows Jesse to lead him over the invisible ocean floor. They wade into the deep end and slowly begin to float, buoyant in the weightless current. Jesse's hand is still laced with Walt's own beneath the surface of the water.

"You ever have sex on the beach?" Jesse asks with a lilt of a smirk on his lips.

"Actually, I have, and it's not worth the trouble or the discomfort."

Jesse's mouth opens in a laugh of disbelief. "Wow, right on, Mr. White!" Walt can't help the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth, because Jesse's so impressed by Walt's sexual history. Bless him.

Jesse raises his free hand and lays it over Walt's heart. Walt wonders if Jesse can feel the throb of his heartbeat there under his palm. "What about sex  _in_  the beach?" Jesse lifts a curious eyebrow, tilts his head in a particularly meaningful way.

"In the water?" Walt asks, horrified. "No! We're not—No!"

"C'mon, get some excitement in your life."

"I thought I told you about my no-excitement diet."

Jesse scoffs. "You're on vacation, yo! Live a little." The pallid light of the moon highlights his flawless shape and makes him look like some ethereal wonder. Rivulets of water trickle down the curve of Jesse's chest, his shoulders, his throat. Walt wets his lips, finds his mouth impossibly dry.

"We're in  _public_."

"There's, like, nobody out here," Jesse says, throwing out a hand at the expanse of beach. "And they can barely see us anyway. Nobody's gonna know." Jesse throws his arms around Walt's neck to crush their mouths together.

Walt digs his fingers in at Jesse's waist and pulls them into deeper water. The lazy waves break around them, and Walt feels the press of Jesse's body against his own, moans into the kiss. Jesse takes that as a green light and snakes his hand beneath the water and into Walt's shorts. Walt jumps at the touch and makes a startled sound around Jesse's mouth, edging his hips away from Jesse's eager hand.

"Were you valedictorian too at Buzzkill University?" Jesse grumbles. His fingers stretch out to brush against the length of Walt's dick. A spike of heat builds in his groin. "C'mon, Mr. White, tell me you want this..." Jesse's voice is low and rough at his ear, his hand squeezing and stroking over Walt's cock. Walt groans and bucks his hips into the pressure, clutching at Jesse's back and kissing the curve of his shoulder. Jesse catches the weight of him with his free hand, arm wrapped around his middle to hold him afloat. "I'll be so good to you when it's your turn again," Jesse promises, and damn if that doesn't get Walt shoving into the slide of Jesse's fist.

Jesse's grip tightens and loosens around Walt's dick, the pad of his thumb rubbing over the head. Walt gasps kisses against his mouth. His hips slice through the water as their rhythm synchronizes. "You're always good to me," Walt says, because, yeah, he's a sap.

Jesse smiles and kisses him again. "Fuck yeah, I am." His grip slackens for a moment, and Walt searches the midnight ocean for vague shadows, something to clue him in on why Jesse just...stopped. Did Walt ruin the moment? That seems like something he'd do, inadvertently fucking things up in an attempt to help; hell, that could be the title of his autobiography.

But Jesse's not stopping, just pausing the action for a bit so he can get a handful of his own dick and grip the two of them together, and, wow, that's really fucking hot. Jesse's cock is a rigid line of heat against Walt's own, and Walt can feel Jesse's fingers drag over his shoulder blades as he jerks them off together. Jesse makes a throaty little moan and tips his head back. Walt can't resist the invitation; he goes straight for the curve of Jesse's neck, dipping his tongue into the hollow there. Jesse strokes them faster and rolls his hips into the slide of his fist.

"I—I can't..." Jesse sputters out, and it doesn't matter what the rest of that sentence is; whatever Jesse's going to do next is absolutely worth witnessing. A couple more strokes and Jesse's gone, and Walt watches his face, because Jesse's never more beautiful than when he's coming for Walt. The crease of his brow, his lips parted around soft little moans, the way he shuts his eyes like he's found something he's been searching for a thousand years.

Jesse's body shakes and quivers under Walt's hands as he comes down from heaven. Walt kisses the edge of his jaw and chin, covers Jesse's hand with his own to coax him to continue. Jesse claims his mouth again, but this time there's a hungry edge to it, like he's just as eager for Walt's orgasm as his own. He squeezes a little around the shaft, and it's so good Walt has to shove into it, grinding his balls into the heel of Jesse's hand. Walt breathes out, "Jesse," through shaky lungs, and Jesse squeezes tighter, spurred on by the encouragement.

Jesse's a goddamn pro at handjobs, because it doesn't take long for Walt to let himself go, cresting in Jesse's hand and biting down on a groan. His hips move of their own accord, greedy for every ripple of pleasure left in his groin. Jesse just keeps stroking him and kissing his mouth until he's spent.

Walt catches his breath and frowns at the water, apologetic for the, uh, contribution. "That was wonderful, Jesse, but I can't help but feel it was a bit unsanitary."

Jesse scoffs. "Whatever, it's all saltwater anyway."

Walt snickers, then it evolves into a full-blown laugh. He's never felt as young or as old as he does with Jesse. "You make me feel like a teenager again."

Jesse gives him a lop-sided grin. "Really? So I'm, like, your mid-life crisis twenty-something?"

It feels like an insult, because Jesse is so much more than a young, attractive place to stick his dick into. Walt can't find the proper words, so he shakes his head and says, "You're home."

When they get back to their room, Jesse strips Walt of his water-logged shorts and pushes him onto the bed. He's got a lust-starved gleam in his eyes, that heady, intense gaze he wears when they're tangled together in bed. So Walt's not too concerned about where this is going.

At least until Jesse kneels at the foot of the bed and opens his mouth around Walt's dick.

Whoa. This is new.

Walt makes an embarrassing noise of want and knots his fingers in Jesse's hair. Jesse loops an arm around Walt's thigh, one hand gripped around the base of Walt's cock to steady him. He's only got the head between his lips right now, but his mouth is so wet and hot Walt wonders if he can take any more. To have his entire dick engulfed in this moist, swirling heat...

Jesse hums around him, and the sound ripples through Walt's nerves like a shockwave. He moans a graceless sound, hands tugging at Jesse's hair. Jesse swallows him a little deeper. His thumb plays at the base of Walt's dick, then he flattens his tongue along the underside to chase the bulging vein there. Walt sucks in a breath and glances down at Jesse between his legs. Jesse gazes up at him, eyes almost imploring for praise. "That's good, Jesse," Walt murmurs, and Jesse swallows more of him in appreciation.

Walt's imagined this over and over, fantasized about Jesse on his knees with his mouth full of Walt's cock, but none of his fantasies compare to the real thing. It's shaky and sloppy and uncertain, but it's real, it's them, and Walt wouldn't want it another way. He pushes his hands through Jesse's hair, making contented little noises cut through with praise until Jesse slowly pulls off, giving the swollen head a few lingering sucks before letting Walt's dick fall from his mouth. Jesse glances up at him, runs his tongue over his lower lip to catch a stringy line of pre-cum at the corner of his mouth.

Walt feels himself grow impossibly harder.

"Told you I'd be good to you," Jesse says, rising up on his knees. He stands and fetches the bottle of lube from the nightstand. Walt watches him move closer and squirt a handful into his palm. His skin jumps a little at the cold, but Jesse's hand is hot enough to warm the gel as it glides over his cock. When he's done, Jesse climbs into Walt's lap, his knees nestled in the mattress on either side of Walt. All he can do is watch, awed, as Jesse sinks down and takes him in. Walt can feel when he's fully sheathed inside of him, the way Jesse's insides twitch and clench around his dick. Jesse's hands reach for Walt's, and Walt gives them to him, clasping their fingers together. Jesse's got his arms braced in front of him, so it's easier for him to shove his hips back and grind into Walt's dick. His mouth opens around a moan, and for a moment Walt thinks Jesse's going to take this slow, since he's never done it before.

But Jesse's never been predictable, and of course this would be no exception. He rides Walt hard and fast, his feverish pace barely allotting him time to gasp out, "Mr. White," before the next rotation steals the breath from his lungs. Walt works his hips in tandem with Jesse's to deepen the ache when they crash together. Jesse's so fucking tight it's almost unreal.

Jesse angles his hips back, and the next thrust sends a cracked noise through his teeth. Walt keeps shoving in, desperate for more of Jesse's appreciation. It's over almost as quickly as it began; neither one of them last very long at all when they're together like this. Jesse whimpers something pleading before he breaks apart and leaves stringy white splatters over his belly. Walt watches, transfixed by Jesse's orgasm, until he too falls over the edge.

His hands stay linked with Jesse's through the comedown, occasionally giving soft squeezes when Jesse grinds on him in a way that pulls a groan from his throat. Jesse lies on Walt's chest once they're finished, and Walt tangles a hand in Jesse's hair, drunk on the way their bodies fit together. Jesse's fingers crawl up Walt's arm, languid and lazy, and he tips his head a little so he can look at him. "Tonight was the first night we worked as a team since we cooked," he murmurs, a small smile on his mouth.

Walt nods in silence.

Jesse's brow creases, his bright blue eyes wide. "How come you never talk about it? There was a lot of crap, but there were some good times too."

Walt knows what he means. He draws his fingers through Jesse's hair. "Maybe we ought to leave the past in the past."

"Or maybe we stare the past down and make it our bitch," Jesse argues. "We don't have to dwell on it, but we can't ignore it, y'know? It made us who we are."

It's kind of scary when Jesse makes sense; Walt's still not used to it. "That was such a dark time in both our lives, Jesse. That can't be the thread that holds us together like this."

"But it isn't. We're good together," Jesse says, staring at him intently, and Walt feels the words in his soul. They're amazing together, and not just in bed, but also in the quiet moments where they're simply sharing their lives with each other. "If we can make it through that, we can make it through anything." Then, as if fearing he's said too much, "I mean, at least I think so."

Is Jesse naïve, or is Walt just really cynical? He hopes it's the latter, because Jesse's relentless optimism is like water to a man dying of thirst. Maybe they really do balance each other out, like Jesse said earlier. "I think so too," Walt says, holding him tighter. "I think our future will be much calmer."

"Not too calm. We all need some excitement every now and then." Jesse sits up, and Walt feels the tacky slide of jizz as Jesse's skin slides over his own. Gross. Jesse notices it too and says, "Jacuzzi?"

"You read my mind."

#

The next evening, Walt treats Jesse to dinner with his share of the prize money. The restaurant is vast and extravagant, overlooking the glorious view of the beach. Giant windows encompass nearly every wall and make the place look like a sports stadium skybox with cloth napkins. Walt would love to watch the tide roll in and out, but Jesse's wrapped in a halo from the setting sun and damn if he doesn't look gorgeous.

Jesse notices Walt's staring. "What? I got somethin' on my face?" he asks, his mouth half full.

Walt shakes his head, smiles a little. "Just admiring the view."

Jesse glances at the scenery behind them. "Oh yeah, it's pretty dope, huh?"

 _Wrong view_ , Walt thinks.

"I love how chill this place is," Jesse continues, oblivious to Walt's compliment. "Total opposite of our place back home."

"Yes, I've been thinking about that myself." How tranquil would it be to have a little slice of paradise all to themselves? The cabin feels like a snowed-in prison, trapping them inside under sheets of ice. But this is more like a retirement getaway, someplace you could make a home. "What it would be like to live here."

"Hell yeah. They got free wi-fi."

"I don't mean here at the resort, Jesse. I mean... _here_. The beach. In a cottage of our own like the one we're staying in now."

Jesse leans in, his eyes wide in wonder. "Seriously? You wanna move here?"

Walt panics for a moment that Jesse thinks he's gone insane. "It was just a passing thought—"

"Dude, that's awesome! I mean, I like our place, but it's way too cold, y'know?"

Walt makes a face. "You wear approximately twelve sweaters any given day. How can you not be perfectly suited for cold weather?"

"Don't be a hater, Mr. White," Jesse says, spearing a cluster of noodles with his fork. "You're always the one bitching about turning the heat up anyway." Walt just scowls while Jesse chews thoughtfully. "Are you actually considering moving here, or is this just one of your random ideas that don't really go anywhere?"

"If it was something you wanted," Walt says, measuring his words, "I would consider it more heavily."

"Maybe you should start considering it."

Walt feels a jolt of shock. He'd assumed Jesse was entirely content with their tucked-away life in New Hampshire, but if his heart lies elsewhere... "Maybe I will." He feels skeevy bringing this up, because he knows how Jesse reacts to it, but he's going to power through anyway: "I feel like I'm just waiting to die up there."

As if on cue, Jesse's expression pinches like he's been zapped with a cattle prod.

"Like there's nothing more for me than just being sequestered away," Walt continues. "But here... even though there's solitude, it's different somehow."

Jesse nods like he understands, like he feels it too.

"I guess maybe it feels more like home."

Jesse lets that sink in a moment, then he says, "Yeah, I mean, who says we have to be stuck up in the mountains waitin' to be buried by an avalanche?"

"That's...rather hyperbolous, but I see your point."

Jesse gives him a proud little smile before taking another bite of lobster mac, because, yeah, he's basically one step away from ordering off the kids' menu. Though the one forkful Walt managed to pilfer earlier was goddamn delicious, so he's not in any position to judge Jesse's menu choices.

After dinner, Walt tries his hardest not to be embarrassed at Jesse's enthusiasm over the ice cream machine near the dessert bar. Jesse's built himself a proverbial tower of vanilla ice cream inside a tiny little cone, topped with more sprinkles than entirely necessary. They walk along the beach to their cottage, and Jesse's ice cream begins to melt, dripping over his fingers as he tries to catch the drops. And, no, Walt isn't thinking anything dirty  _at all_  watching Jesse's tongue and mouth work. Of course not.

"You finally gettin' the hang of this dating thing now?" Jesse asks around a mouthful of ice cream. There's a sprinkle at the corner of his mouth Walt wants to lick away, but Jesse robs him of the opportunity.

"I—I think I'm managing quite well, actually. It's been a while, but some things never change."

"So you got lucky." Jesse bites into the ice cream cone, and Walt winces because, damn, even  _his_  teeth hurt watching that. But Jesse doesn't even flinch. Walt's tempted to throw salt on him and see what happens.

Neither of them say anything for a while, just walk together in comfortable silence as Jesse finishes his ice cream and the sun sinks on the horizon.

They reach the front door of the cottage, and Jesse leans against the doorframe while Walt's sticking the key into the lock. "Thanks for dinner,  _Walt_ ," Jesse says with a grin. "Is this the part where you kiss me goodnight?"

Walt jerks away a little and straightens up to look at Jesse.

Jesse's brow creases. "What?"

"Did you just call me Walt?"

Jesse's giving him a very familiar look right now; it's the "how do you not fall down more?" stare that says Jesse's questioning Walt's intelligence. Walt knows that look, because he's aimed it at Jesse more times than he can count. "That's your name, isn't it?"

"It's just—you never call me that." Except when Jesse's furious and trying to make a point.

Jesse shrugs his shoulders. "I was just tryin' it out. You think it's weird?"

How strange it is to hear his name spoken from Jesse's lips, even after Skyler and Gretchen have made it their own. But Walt's always been "Mr. White" to Jesse, and he's not sure if he wants that to change. He likes the ego boost of authority, and, yeah, maybe he's got a bit of a teacher/student kink.

"I think you can call me whatever you like," Walt says.

"Okay." Jesse walks his fingers up the slope of Walt's chest. "Bitch."

Walt narrows his eyes. "Not that."

That earns a little smirk in response, and Jesse fists a hand in Walt's shirt, tugging him closer. "So, how 'bout that goodnight kiss?"

Walt leans in so their noses are almost touching, and he watches how Jesse stares at his lips expectantly, as if waiting for Walt to close the distance between them and seal their mouths together. "I'm not saying goodnight to you yet," Walt murmurs, taking Jesse's hand and dragging him inside.


	10. Chapter 10

Returning to the cabin after spending a week in paradise is jarring, to say the least. With a heavy heart, Walt trades short sleeves and beach shorts for coats and thermal underwear. Even Jesse seems a bit disheartened about the climate change, though he tries not to show it. But Jesse's never been very skilled at hiding his emotions; they seem to emanate from him like heat off a sidewalk, a tangible aura Walt can just  _feel_.

"Home sweet home, huh?" Walt says, tossing his duffel bag onto the bed.

Jesse breathes a humorless laugh. "Totally."

"At least it's not permanent, remember?" Walt lays a hand over the small of Jesse's back, making him jump a bit. "We won't stay here very long."

Jesse's making his serious, thinking face, like he's distressed about something. "I hope not."

They stay through the rest of the summer while the mountain winter is bearable. Walt has his family's birthdates scrawled on the calendar, so when July rolls around he's already got a gift prepared for Junior. Jesse joins Walt on the bed to help him wrap the present, but most of Jesse's contributions involve him handing Walt scissors and tape and chatting away—almost reminiscent of the days they spent cooking, when Jesse would hand Walt flasks and beakers and talk his ear off.

_Some things never change._

"Damn, I hope you get  _me_  an iPad when it's my birthday," Jesse says. "As your boyfriend, I think I deserve somethin' expensive."

"When did you become so materialistic?" Walt wonders aloud.

"I'm just sayin', yo. You don't wanna look like you're playin' favorites, do you?"

"How can I possibly play favorites between my boyfriend and my son? Those are two completely different things, although equally important."

"Well, since we're 'equally important' you better not get me somethin' cheap." Jesse smirks when Walt rolls his eyes. He watches while Walt tapes the paper down. "Y'know, you could'a got this, like, pre-wrapped."

"There aren't many things I can do for my family anymore, Jesse. The least I can do is to wrap my son's birthday present."

"It's not like he's gonna know you did it," Jesse argues, opening and closing the scissors. Walt has to reach out and lay a hand over Jesse's to get him to stop, because, Jesus, didn't Jesse learn scissor safety in preschool? Jesse frowns at the silent scolding.

"But he'll know I was thinking of him."

"Yeah, speaking of which..." Jesse rubs the back of his neck. "Not to be a killjoy or nothin', but don't you think this is a bad idea? I mean, what if someone else traces this back to you? Someone who wants to kill us?"

Walt's not going to deny that he's thought about that, but the chances of Gus finding them now are impossibly slim. It's been months since anyone in the lab heard from Walter White. Most likely, they've moved on and forgotten about him.

"Like, you got pissed at me for suggesting you call your wife, now you're sending gifts?" Jesse continues. "What changed?"

"I think it's been long enough that Gus and his associates have moved on," Walt says. What he's  _not_  saying is there's a hell of a lot of guilt churning around inside of him, because he's building a new life with Jesse Pinkman and he's not even officially divorced. So, there's that.

This is not the life he would have chosen for himself if circumstances were different, if he hadn't fucked up colossally. It's not that he regrets loving Jesse, but, God, does he miss his kids.

Walt fights that train of thought and tightens up the corners on the paper. He makes sure the edges are perfectly smooth before placing the final piece of tape down.

"God, you are so anal," Jesse says. "And not even in the good way."

Walt lifts his gaze to glare at him; Jesse flashes a wide grin. "No, I'm anal-retentive.  _You're_  anal."

Jesse snorts a laugh, his nose crinkling in that endearing way. "I'm gonna put a note in here that says, 'me and your dad talked about anal sex while we were wrapping this. Happy birthday!' And sign it 'Jesse White.'"

Walt can't  _not_  smile about that. "Just a minute ago you were my boyfriend."

"Yeah, well, I move fast."

 _Too fast_ , Walt thinks, and his hands still as a crippling wave of despair crashes over him, because this is how Jesse's spending his youth—living out his days with a man too old to give him what he needs and wants.

Walt remembers the impermanence of his own youth, how he'd been so certain he'd marry that timid girl with the pigtails and glasses who sat in front of him in second grade, how he'd just known his high school crush on the head of the student council was  _totally going places_ , how he'd thought Gretchen was his soul mate, how he imagined he'd be buried next to Skyler someday.

Now he's here in a snowed-in cabin with Jesse Pinkman already planning their new life together. Walt knows he's just a port in a storm for Jesse, that Jesse's feelings will fade and he'll want something more than what Walt can give him. But Jesse's so young and stubborn he can't see things clearly.

_You can't infantilize them, you can't live their life for them. But still, I mean, there is that frustration…I mean, God, that frustration that goes along with it. "You know, as a matter of fact I do know what is best for you, so listen." But of course they don't. I mean, what do you do with someone like that?_

Jesse's watching him with a curious, almost frightened expression. "Hey, I was just—I was just joking. I didn't mean to..." He rubs the back of his neck and trails off, glancing at anything and everything but Walt. "I'm sorry."

Walt shakes his head. "You didn't do anything wrong, Jesse."

"Then how come you look so miserable?" Walt doesn't answer, doesn't know  _how_  to answer, and Jesse asks, in a pitifully small voice, "Do you still think you've lived too long?"

Walt looks at him and says, "I don't think I could live long enough."

#

In August, Walt sends Skyler a sapphire necklace for her birthday. He wonders if she'll wear it or even keep it, if she's purged all traces of Walter White from her home. Skyler could be cold, but Walt always loved her soft, sentimental side, and he thinks she might find use for the necklace somehow, either as a token of a lost love or pawned for cash. The gesture alone is enough for Walt.

On September 7th, Walt wakes up wishing he hadn't. Today is his fifty-first birthday. Walt's been dreading this day for months, ever since he and Jesse became more than mere partners, because nothing drills in the fact that you're a quarter-century older than your boyfriend better than your birthday.

One more year etched onto his face and body. One year closer to the inevitable day when Jesse will no longer want him. Yeah, Walt has nothing to celebrate.

He pries open one eye and surveys the cabin. No decorations, no cake, no presents in sight. Good.

Jesse's standing in the kitchen, making breakfast over the stove. He's wearing Ninja Turtlesboxers and one of Walt's shirts. He's got the heater cranked up, and faint music sounds from his phone's tiny speakers. Business as usual, then. Maybe Jesse forgot about Walt's birthday, in which case Walt sure as hell isn't going to remind him.

Walt decides to get up, slinging his legs over the side of the bed. His knees crack as he walks, and the sound screams through the cabin. Yet another reminder of the bleak day.

Jesse glances over his shoulder and smiles when he sees Walt. "Oh, great, you're up! I made you breakfast."

"And you stole my shirt," Walt says, stepping closer and tugging at the unbuttoned edges of Jesse's shirt.

Jesse's cheeks flush. "Baking accident." He gestures with his head to the plate of elaborately decorated crepes on the counter. "I crepe'd myself." There's that goofy smile that knocks Walt back a step.

"How long have you been waiting to use that joke?"

"For, like, an hour. It's about time your old ass got up." Jesse pats Walt on the shoulder as Walt walks away to grab a shirt out of the closet. As far as birthdays go, this one's pretty decent so far in that it hasn't been acknowledged in any way. What are the odds Jesse even knows what today is? It's not like he's asked Walt about his birthday. He probably doesn't have a clue.

After buttoning up, Walt makes a quick detour to the restroom. When he steps out into the living room again, he sees a plate of delicious crepes with chocolate drizzle and strawberries sitting on his side of the table. As he moves closer, he notices there's some sort of message or design scrawled in whipped cream.

 _51_.

Oh. Oh no. Jesse totally knows.

Fuck Walt's life.

Jesse's grinning expectedly, his hands clasped behind his back. "It's your birthday, right?"

A cluster of emotion hits Walt like a blow to the solar plexus, because this is the opposite of what he wanted. And, no, this totally doesn't remind him of how Skyler used to arrange the bacon strips on his plate to read his age each year. Nope. Not in the slightest. So now there's fresh guilt to season the disappointment.

"How did you..."

Jesse moves closer as he talks, lays his hands on the back of the empty chair. "Remember that one time I just barely flunked one of your tests, and after class I was like, 'c'mon, Mr. White, it's just one point. If my parents see I flunked another test they're gonna kill me,' and you gave me the extra point?"

Walt barely fucking remembers that, but he goes with, "Yeah?"

"Well, I asked you why you did it, 'cause normally you're such a hard-ass, and you said you were feeling generous 'cause it was your birthday."

Walt's mouth falls open a bit. Holy shit, Jesse remembers literally  _everything_. Walt will never be able to live down anything embarrassing in this relationship. "If only your memory was so infallible about your studies."

Jesse rolls his eyes, but there's no heat to it, like they've had this conversation a thousand times before. "If you're gonna keep ridin' my ass, you don't get your present."

Walt lets the innuendo fly right by him to focus on the more pressing topic. "Present? What—no, no presents."

"Aww, c'mon!" Jesse whines, dropping into the seat across from Walt. "Can you not be a party pooper for once, Captain Buzzkill? Most people  _like_  getting presents."

"Yes, well, I don't."

"God, you are just the crankiest old man in existence, huh?" Jesse chuckles. "C'mon, at least let me give you somethin' in exchange for that awesome vacation."

"That was for both of us," Walt corrects.

"Maybe your present is for both of us too." That just leads Walt's imagination down a path of terrifying sexual aids, which, no, God no. Because that would be the icing on the tragedy cake.

Jesse lifts an eyebrow and leans in. "You're thinkin' about it, huh?" Walt nods a little. "You don't get to find out what it is 'til you eat. I didn't spend an hour lookin' up how to make crepes just so you could stare at 'em."

Walt doesn't put up an argument there, because Jesse's cooking is actually pretty good, and Walt's not going to complain about free food. He really ought to make more of an effort at not being such a huge grump; Jesse's managed to soften him up a little, but grumpiness is still pretty much Walt's default emotion.

He pokes at the creamy "51" with his fork. "Skyler used to do this."

"What, make you crepes? Were they better than mine?"

Walt shakes his head. "She never made crepes. But every year on my birthday she would break the bacon into little pieces, just enough to spell out whatever my age was that year."

Jesse's brow creases in distress, as if he fears he's tripped an emotional landmine here. "I'm sorry. I didn't know..."

Walt gives him a soft smile. "I'm not as fragile as you think."

Once Walt's finished with breakfast, Jesse drags his laptop out from underneath the bed and sets it on the table. "So I can't exactly bring you your present, so I'm just gonna have to show you," he explains. The screen blinks to life at the press of a button, but Walt can't see anything because Jesse's got the computer facing him. "If you hate it just—please don't be mad, okay? I probably shouldn't have made this a surprise, but by the time I realized that it was kinda too late."

"It's all right, Jesse. I'm sure I'll love it. And if not, well, I can always exchange it."

Jesse winces. "Not exactly."

"You bought it on sale?"

"Sorta?" He stares worriedly at the screen, like he's regretting everything in his entire life. He breathes out a deep sigh. "Okay, I'll just show you before I puss out." Jesse turns the screen so Walt can see. "Remember how you wanted to move by the beach? I, uh, I did some searching, and I—I found us a place."

Walt actually gasps out loud. Did Jesse seriously buy them a house? How the fuck is Walt going to top this for Jesse's birthday?

"You bought us a house?" Walt croaks, because that's something he has to say out loud.

Jesse's hiding behind the laptop lid. "Yeah, I might've—I might've put some money down on it. But it looks choice, y'know? And it's not too far away from the beach we were at."

Walt glances at the address and feels his heart stop. It's in the same cluster of cottages as the one he'd stayed in with Gretchen all those years ago. But there's no way for Jesse to have known that, because Walt never told him exactly where they'd stayed. Unless Jesse called Gretchen and asked, but, no, that's impossible. Walt never mentioned her name or who she was. This is just a weird-as-fuck coincidence in a day seemingly full of them.

Jesse misreads Walt's moment of stunned shock as something negative and starts clicking through the pictures. "See, it looks nice, right? Check out that bitchin' view. Is that a hot tub? You're goddamn right that's a hot tub. And it's not, like, ridiculously expensive 'cause it's just a one-bedroom. All the others had, like, twelve bedrooms and eight baths. Shit's crazy. But it's bigger than our place now, and bigger than the one we had at the resort. So that's good." Jesse's rambling in that nervous way of his; Walt wants to say something to ease his mind, but it's kind of adorable.

Jesse looks at him, his eyes wide and panicked over the top of the computer. "You're not saying anything, and that's kinda freaking me out. Please say something. Even if you hate it. Just...say words."

There's nothing else to say but, "It's perfect."

Jesse goes impossibly rigid. "For real? You're not just bein' polite 'cause it's your birthday?"

"No, I really do like it." He looks at the pictures again, and he doesn't have to try to imagine himself and Jesse living inside those walls; the image comes naturally, almost like recalling a memory. "It feels like home already."

Jesse's proud, exuberant smile knocks the breath from Walt's lungs. Even after almost half a year with Jesse, Walt still has no idea what he did to deserve this degree of good fortune. "I'm so glad you like it!" Jesse says, breathing out a sigh of relief as he pushes away from the table. "I thought you were gonna be super pissed." He wraps his arms around Walt's neck and tilts in for a kiss. Walt pushes their mouths together, smooth and gentle.

"Buying a house without consulting your boyfriend is rather reckless," Walt reminds him around the kiss. "But I certainly dropped enough hints." This could never have happened in his old life, when he'd worked two jobs just to keep his family afloat, when his birthday presents were new socks or a tie. There's some things Walt just doesn't miss about the life he left behind.

"I suppose you'll want something equally extravagant for your birthday?" Walt asks when his mouth is free.

Jesse smirks. "Yeah, you already owe me an iPad and a new house."

"Maybe you'll just have to settle for an iPad this year."

"Cheap-ass," Jesse says before claiming Walt's mouth again.

#

"And that's my story," Walt says, exhaling and sitting back in his chair, as if a weight has been lifted off of his chest. "That's why I'm here."

Hank's wearing the look of a man who has stared, unblinking, into an abyss of pure, unadulterated horror. He just sits there, dazed, like he'll never be able to make sense of anything ever again. For a guy who just learned his brother-in-law is an ex-drug lord who faked his death to live in the mountains with his twenty-five-year-old partner-in-crime, Hank's taking it pretty well.

After a brief, silent existential crisis, Hank shoves away from the table. The chair scrapes against the floor. He stands up, starts pacing around the cabin. "Heisenberg," he says with a low chuckle. "So, all this time I was chasin'  _you_? You lying, two-faced sack of shit!"

Walt stays silent, letting Hank get the rage out of his system. This could take a while.

"The scumbags that shot me were gunnin' for you! If you hadn't got mixed up with Fring..." His hands tighten into fists. "All the lies, all the bullshit you fed me and Skyler and Marie and your own goddamn kid—then you fake your death to run off with that fuckin' junkie Pinkman—"

"Hank," Walt growls in warning. The urge to protect Jesse curls in his gut; he never truly realized how much vitriol is in that one word until he's heard someone else use it against Jesse.

"What did you expect, that I'd just be okay with this? That I'd shake your hand and thank you for being honest and just walk away?" He approaches the table and bears down on Walt. "No, no, I'm gonna bury you. I'm gonna lock you and your little shithead boyfriend up for life in a joint that'll make Guantanamo look like a fuckin' Hilton."

Walt meets his stare, cold and unfeeling. "Before you do, why don't you ask Marie who paid your physical therapy bills?"

The mask of fury disappears from Hank's face, and he straightens up. "What are you—" Then he loses all color. "You didn't... Tell me you didn't..."

"Skyler insisted."

Hank looks like a lost child abandoned in a supermarket. He stares at Walt as if seeing him for the first time. "You son of a bitch..."

Walt takes care to hide his smirk. Hank can't turn him in without risking his own career. Who could trust a DEA agent who accepted drug money? "Are you willing to throw away your entire career for petty revenge? What would be the point? I don't cook anymore. You wouldn't be taking an illegal drug manufacturer off of the streets. You'd only be satisfying your own ego."

Hank scoffs. "Don't lecture me about ego,  _Heisenberg_."

Walt shrugs. Point taken. "Wouldn't you rather keep your job by going after Gus Fring and his associates?"

Hank wipes a hand over his mouth, shakes his head. "Christ, you'd sell them out to save your own ass. And then what? You think you can come back to your old life like nothin' happened? 'Cause you bet your ass Fring's got guys on the outside who'll pay you a little visit if they hear Walter White's back in town."

"Oh, I know there's no coming back," Walt says. "This is the life I've chosen."

"Some life," Hank mutters. To him, it must seem like a fate worse than death. And it would be, if Walt wasn't moving away with Jesse.

"It has its perks."

Hank barks a nasty-sounding laugh. "What, you get to screw some junkie?"

Walt bristles at the word; he despises himself for ever wielding it as a weapon against Jesse. "Jesse is not just 'some junkie,' Hank." He wants to explain all the ways Jesse is fascinating and intelligent and beautifully brilliant, but he knows Hank would never understand, could never see Jesse the way Walt does. And maybe Walt doesn't want him to. Walt's never been great at sharing.

Hank rolls his eyes but doesn't argue the point. "So this is it, huh? You're just gonna stay here in the middle of bumfuck nowhere 'til, what, you drop dead and leave Pinkman to bury your sorry ass?"

It sounds fucking awful said out loud like that, and Walt understands the dread Jesse feels about it. "That's a, uh, rather unpleasant way of putting it."

"And you gave up your family for this?"

"I didn't give them up, Hank—"

Hank tilts his head and gives Walt a skeptical look, easing back into the role of a cop. "Really? 'Cause that's what it looks like to me."

"Skyler  _doesn't want me_ ," Walt spits out, the words like poison on his tongue. "She wouldn't come with me. What choice did I have? I couldn't tell them the truth! They'd be in danger! Would you prefer I killed an innocent man to stay with my family?"

"You could call the fucking cops!" Hank shakes his head. "Jesus, Walter, you're the smartest guy I know, but sometimes you can be a complete fuckin' idiot. You could'a come to me. I could'a helped you."

Walt scoffs. "Oh, right, you, a DEA agent, would help your illegal drug-manufacturing brother-in-law."

"If you gave up the names of the big fish in the pond, hell yeah. C'mon, you don't leave your family out in the cold."

Walt feels like that's a jab at him, but he doesn't think he's truly left Skyler and his children in a bad spot. By faking his death, they've got insurance money to keep them afloat, and Skyler and Walter Junior know Walt's not actually dead. He could have run off without a word, left them penniless and wondering if he was dead in a ditch somewhere. All things considered, it could have been worse.

But maybe that's just what he tells himself so he can sleep at night, so he doesn't feel guilty for breathing in the scent of Jesse's hair or making love to him.

Walt spreads his hands. "Are you going to arrest me now?"

Hank scowls at him. "You know how much I wish I could." He glances around the cabin. "Where's your little meth-head boyfriend anyway?"

Walt grits his teeth. "Jesse has been clean for months now, Hank, and he's currently at work. Why? Are you going to try to arrest him too?" Walt knows full well about Hank's, uh, history with Jesse. He just can't resist yanking the guy's chain a bit.

Hank gives a rough shake of his head.

"How are Skyler and the kids?" Walt asks, desperate for some sort of proof that they're doing fine without him, that they never needed him in the first place. That'd make him sleep a hell of a lot easier.

"They're good," Hank says, like he thinks this is some sort of trick. "Sky got Junior a car for his birthday. He's always askin' me if I need a ride somewhere."

"That's great." Walt smiles sadly, because deep down he's happy. He never wanted them to stagnate and wallow in misery over him. He started cooking to give them a better life in his absence; that better life just came about in a different way than he'd planned. Of course, he wishes he could have been more involved in Holly's life, but maybe someday along the line Jesse might give him a second chance to do the whole fatherhood thing right. Maybe.

"So this is it, huh? I'm just s'posed to walk away and forget about all this?"

"You're not walking away empty-handed," Walt reminds him. "I've given you the names of the major players in the Pollos Hermanos drug empire. That should earn you at least one conviction. Who knows? You might get a promotion."

Hank scrubs a hand over his face. Walt can see how badly Hank wants to slap cuffs on him, but the minute Hank admits the elusive Heisenberg is his own brother-in-law, he's done. And Hank  _knows_  Walt knows it.

"I should have done things differently," Walt says, staring off at nothing in particular. "If I had found some other way..." He shakes his head. "Everything I did, I did to protect my family. You don't understand—"

"Yeah, there's nothing about this I understand," Hank snaps. "What would they think if they knew you aren't actually dead?"

"They know. Jesus, I'm not—I'm not that cold-blooded, Hank. I would never let my children think their father just abandoned them."

Hank looks like he wants to argue with that, but he holds his tongue.

"Now that you know where I am, you're in danger too," Walt reminds him. "You have to take Gus down. It's the only way to keep us all safe."

Hank lumbers to the door. "I'll think about it."

Walt knows he will, because Hank can be doggedly persistent when he wants something. He'll eventually crack open the past of Gustavo Fring, or maybe Gale Boetticher, and see what he finds.

"It was nice seeing you again, Hank," Walt says, sounding feeble. "Tell Skyler and the kids I said hello."

Hank shoots him a glare. "Tell them yourself," he says before shutting the door behind him. Walt gazes out the window, watching Hank climb into his truck and start the engine.

If Walt didn't have an ace up his sleeve, he'd be worried about Hank returning with a warrant for arrest. But Hank doesn't know about the move to the beach. Walt carefully omitted that little detail in his story. If Hank does decide to come back to arrest him or collect evidence, he'll find merely an empty cabin in the mountains with no proof that Walt and Jesse ever existed here.

Hank's visit couldn't have come at a better time; as if Walt needed more of a push to leave this place.

Walt rises from his seat and begins cleaning up, packing away the final few items remaining in cabinets and closets. He's sort of amazed that Hank didn't notice how barren the place is; maybe the shock of Walt's story knocked his cop senses askew. Of course, on the drive home Hank will probably think back on their little visit, and details will come into focus that were previously murky, but by the time the pieces click into place Walt will be gone.

Walt's sealing up the final box when Jesse's '53 Chevy rumbles up the driveway. He hears the engine shut off, the open and close of the truck door, then the shuffle of Jesse's boots through the snow. Jesse fumbles with locking and unlocking the door until Walt just opens it for him.

"I thought I locked up before I left," Jesse says.

Walt covers Jesse's mouth with his own, arms slinking around his waist. "You did. We had a visitor."

"Oh yeah?" Jesse's voice shakes, either from Walt's kissing expertise or the panic over the identity of their guest.

"Hank Schrader. You remember him, don't you?"

Jesse tears himself out of Walt's arms, eyes wide in panic. "What? He was  _here_? I thought you only told your wife and kids you weren't really dead! How does he know?" The last time Hank and Jesse were in the same room, Jesse ended up with bruises, so, yeah, he's got the right to be a little apprehensive.

"He figured it out," Walt admits. "Apparently my gifts for Skyler and Junior were a bit...suspicious."

"I told you," Jesse mutters under his breath, but it's hard to hide anything amongst the quiet here. There's silence, and then there's rural silence.

Walt shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. We're all right. I told him everything."

Jesse gasps. " _Everything_? Like, you and me everything? Fifty-fifty partners everything?"

Walt nods.

Jesse looks like he's just been punched. His mouth hangs open in disbelief. "Why? Why would you—I thought we—"

Walt risks a few steps closer, lays his hands on Jesse's hips. "I also told him about Gus Fring and the Pollos empire. Hank won't come after us, I promise." He buries his nose in the fluff of Jesse's hair. "We're safe."

Jesse clings at Walt's shirt with shaky hands.

"I omitted a few details, of course," Walt says. "Emilio, Krazy-8, the gangbangers..." Walt stops himself before he says, "Jane." Of all Walt's ghosts, she's the one who haunts him the most. "Our new home..."

Jesse looks up at him. "So—so he doesn't know we're leavin'?"

"I told you: we're safe."

"You sure? I mean, this place is pretty empty. You don't think he noticed that?"

"I'm sure finding out that his brother-in-law was a drug lord probably took precedence," Walt says.

"And that you and me are..." Jesse gestures in a way that's supposed to mean something.

"Yeah, that'll keep him busy for a while." Walt chuckles.

They cram the remaining boxes into the truck bed. Surprisingly, everything fits save for the furniture. But the cabin was pre-furnished anyway, and Walt would much rather buy a new mattress than keep the old one with the shitty springs that poke him in the arm.

Jesse opens the driver's door and grabs a bulging, grease-stained paper sack. "I got us some food for the road. 'Cause I don't wanna be drivin' hungry for six hours."

"You know we'll have to stop eventually," Walt says.

Jesse laughs and hands Walt the bag. "Just grab whatever you want outta there. I'm gonna run inside real quick and make sure we didn't forget anything."

Walt sets the bag on the passenger seat and rummages through it. Jesse must have been starving when he ordered all of this; there's a burger, fries, tater tots, cheese sticks, and a hot dog inside the bag, as well as a 44-ounce drink stuffed into the cupholder, and a smaller cup alongside it. Walt assumes the smaller one is supposed to be his, or else Jesse's greatly overestimated his thirst.

"Yo, Mr. White!" Jesse calls from inside the cabin. "I think you forgot somethin'!"

Walt steps inside and looks around. "What is it?"

Jesse jogs to the far wall and jumps up, snatching Walt's Heisenberg hat off of the mounted deer's head. "You without your hat is like Captain America without his shield, or Michael Jackson without his glove." Jesse hands it to Walt, and Walt just stares at it. This hat represents so much of Walt's life that he'd rather leave behind: greed, envy, manipulation, deception, and ruthlessness. He'd donned the Heisenberg persona as a means of hiding from himself, to embrace the dark side of his personality and survive the cruelty of the drug world. But look at the damage it caused, the way Jesse stares at him sometimes like he's waiting to be scolded or smacked down.

Walt doesn't need fire or fury to survive anymore. He needs smoky smiles and languid morning kisses. The promise that life can be good again, even amongst the broken pieces. A life that makes him thankful he survived the cancer and the desert cooks and Gus' quiet rage. He needs Jesse.

Walt shakes his head and places the hat atop the deer's head. "That's not me anymore, Jesse," he says. "Heisenberg is dead. It's time we buried him."

Jesse's quiet for a moment, letting that one sink in. "So who are you now?"

Walt gazes into Jesse's eyes, sees himself reflected in the azure mirrors; has love banished Heisenberg forever under the weight of his devotion to this fragile, beautiful boy? "Walter White."

Jesse takes Walt's hand in his own and gives him a full-wattage smile. "Alright, then let's go home,  _Walt_."

They lock the place up and leave the key stashed under the doormat. Both of them climb into the truck. Jesse digs his fries out of the bag and sticks them in the console, shoving a few into his mouth as the engine roars to life. "Are you gonna miss it?" Jesse asks.

Walt stares at the cabin that he called home for five months. "There's nothing to miss. The best part of living here was always you."

Jesse's face heats up, and he smiles in a way that turns Walt's breathing a little shallow. "Wow. That is such a line."

Walt wants to argue that he means it, but he's got the rest of his life to prove it to Jesse. He leans back in his seat and lets Jesse drive them away to someplace better. He doesn't even mind when Jesse flips on the radio to something loud and obnoxious; while Foreigner sings about being a long, long way from home, Walt thinks he's getting closer by the minute.

#

_Epilogue_

It doesn't take them very long to move into the quaint little cottage on the coast. It's two stories, the bedroom, bathroom, and a small office/lounge on the top floor, with the living room, laundry room, and dining room on the ground level. The house is nestled in a small community of other cottages spread out enough to not be too crowded. It's the perfect balance of isolation and togetherness.

Sometimes Walt wonders if Gretchen's parents still own that summer was well over twenty years ago, but people tend to keep these properties for the long haul. It wouldn't be too difficult to drive by sometime and check, but he'd much rather be with Jesse than go traipsing through the past.

Walt wakes up early on the morning of Jesse's birthday, early enough that the moon's still high in the sky. He can hear the distant crash of the waves outside on the beach through the open window; Jesse likes to keep the bedroom windows ajar so he can fall asleep to the sound of the waves. Walt slinks out of bed, careful not to wake Jesse, and finds his discarded pajamas on the floor. He gets dressed and creeps downstairs to the kitchen. They forgot to draw the blinds and curtains before crashing together on the bed, because the moonlight is more like a spotlight, illuminating their humble abode. Walt doesn't mind; he prefers it to the harsh, unnatural light of lamps or fluorescents.

Only a few of their kitchen items have been unpacked, so Walt finds the things he needs with ease. Walt doesn't cook very often—Jesse prefers to take the reins—but when he does he views it as just another chemistry project.  _Electrons change their energy levels. Molecules change their bonds. Elements combine and change into compounds. Solution, dissolution._ He can't remember the last time he baked a cake, but since it's Jesse's birthday he figures he's going all out.

He's pouring the batter into the cake pans when Jesse comes down the stairs in a loose-fitting t-shirt and boxer shorts, rubbing his eyes. "What're you doin'?" Jesse asks, his voice gravelly with sleep. There's a small smile at the corner of his mouth; it must be strange for him to come downstairs and see Walt baking. Jesse might try to slap himself awake.

"Most people enjoy a cake on their birthday."

Jesse snorts a sound Walt thinks is a laugh. "Seriously? You're so domestic."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Jesse just smirks and pads closer, his feet sounding softly on the tile floor. He surveys the ingredients neatly organized across the kitchen counter. "You actually made it from scratch?" He reaches into the sink and picks up a chocolate-smeared beater. All the coherent thoughts evaporate from Walt's brain as he watches Jesse's tongue chase the gooey batter. "Mmm, chocolate." Walt's fairly certain Jesse's doing this to fuck with him.

"Did I wake you?" Walt asks, turning back to the cake pans and valiantly trying to ignore Jesse's teasing.

"Nah, I couldn't sleep." Jesse licks his lips, sets the beater back in the sink.

"Oh? Shouldn't you wait until you're my age to start worrying about birthdays?"

"I'm not worried. I'm stoked as hell." Jesse grins and takes two steps until he's pressed alongside Walt. "How come you're up so early?"

"I wanted to surprise you. Apparently that's not easy to do."

"Seeing you baking a cake is pretty weird though. Like alternate universe weird."

Walt tips one of the cake pans like he's going to dump it into the sink. "Oh, well, then you won't be disappointed if I just—"

"No, wait!" Jesse reaches out and stops him. "It's weird, but I like weird. And I like chocolate, so you better not dump that out."

Walt smiles, charmed by Jesse's, well, everything. He sticks the cakes into the oven and sets the timer. "We have about thirty minutes to spare." Walt lifts an eyebrow as if to suggest a way to spend their time.

A smirk flashes across Jesse's face. He reaches for Walt's hand, and Walt gives it to him. But Jesse doesn't lead them upstairs, or even to the couch for animalistic love-making. He pushes the patio door open and steps out into the balmy night air. Jesse picks up the pack of cigarettes on the bench before dropping down onto it. He flicks on the lighter, brings the flame to the tip of the cigarette between his lips.

Walt sits beside Jesse and gazes out at the picturesque view before them: the calm ocean spanning out for miles, the powdery sand, the moon hanging bright in the sky. It's like something out of a fairy tale, a place where you could believe magic exists.

Jesse takes a drag off of the cigarette and exhales the smoke in an almost pornographic way. "Be honest," he says. "Do you miss any of it? The cookin', the money, your family..."

"Sometimes, yes. But just because you miss something doesn't mean you want things to go back to the way they were." Walt knows Jesse understands, because Jesse probably feels the same way about Jane.

Jesse takes another drag and looks at Walt. "So you don't want your old life back?"

"I like my new life here with you."

Jesse mouths, "Wow," a smile spreading on his lips. "Are you always gonna be this sappy, or you just gonna save it for special occasions?"

Walt drapes an arm around Jesse's shoulders. "I think you like my softer side."

"Yeah, I don't need you hard all the time." Jesse smirks at him, like Walt might have missed the double entendre there. He yawns, puffs out a breath of smoke. "Do I get to open my presents now?"

" _Presents_? Plural?"

"Just one? It must be awesome then, huh?"

"You bought me a house, Jesse," Walt reminds him. "Anything I give you will seem lackluster in comparison."

"Whatever. I still wanna see."

"You're not seeing anything until the sun's up."

Jesse thumps his head back like Walt's being difficult. "Mr. White," he whines. Walt coughs and tips Jesse's hand to steer the smoke away from his face. "You suck."

"Lucky guess."

Jesse laughs, and Walt feels a spike of heat rise in his belly at the sound. He takes one more long drag before stubbing his cigarette out on the sand. "We got, like, thirty minutes, right? That's long enough to give me two presents."

"Or one exceptional one. I prefer quality over quantity."

"Well, it ain't  _your_  birthday."

"You're gonna wear me out," Walt says, shaking his head like multiple orgasms is a fate worse than death.

Jesse yawns again and cuddles into him. He leans his head on Walt's shoulder. "You know you love it," he murmurs. Walt tucks him up impossibly close, his arm slung low around Jesse's waist. He closes his eyes and lets the beachy silence wash over him: the rustle of grass, the soft rush of the tide slapping against the shore, crickets chirping faintly in the distance. Nothing like the rural silence of their New Hampshire cabin, where a shout felt like it could echo for an eternity.

Walt stays there with Jesse slumbering on his shoulder until the oven timer dings. He moves to get up, and Jesse stirs, makes a sleepy sound of pleading. Slowly, Walt lays him on his side, keeping him angled against the backboard of the bench so he doesn't tip over. Walt takes a moment to admire how serene Jesse looks when he's sleeping, as if the last year was merely a nightmare. It's starting to feel that way for Walt too, some distant sort of memory fading and fraying at the edges.

But maybe he's just getting old.

Walt edges the patio door aside and creeps into the house. While the cakes are cooling, he gets to work on the icing: cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar. He splits the frosting into two bowls and adds a couple drops of food coloring to one of them, effectively turning the creamy white sweetness into creamy  _pink_  sweetness. He'll ice half the cake with white and the other half with pink.

White. Pinkman. Yeah, Walt's a fucking sap deep down. But to be fair, he could've gone a more creative route and chosen Blue Sky for the icing color—maybe sprinkle some blue rock candy on top for effect—but he didn't think Jesse would share in the humor.

It's gonna take a while for the cakes to cool completely. He covers the frosting bowls with plastic and steps outside. Jesse's still snoozing away on the bench, though now he's managed to roll over onto his stomach. His arm's dangling off the side, fingers brushing the sand. Walt considers going back inside to grab his phone, because a moment like this warrants a photo. But nothing good will come of Jesse waking up to see Walt taking a picture of him asleep. So Walt simply kneels at his side and lays his hand along the curve of Jesse's cheek with the slightest pressure.

Jesse blinks awake at the touch, startles a bit.

"Take a walk with me?"

Jesse smiles in recognition and sits up, his body still sluggish with sleep. Walt takes his hand and leads him closer to the waves. The sand is smooth, like baby powder beneath their feet. The night is beginning to ebb into early morning. Walt can hear the distant chirp of birds. They walk together along the stretch of shore that is now their backyard. Jesse sticks his feet in the water, lets the tide rise up and slosh over his ankles. Walt watches with curiousity, pride, amusement when Jesse wiggles his toes in the wet sand and squeezes his hand tighter.

"I totally get it now," Jesse says after a moment, laying his free hand on Walt's chest. "You're gonna keep me in the dark all day and then be like, 'I'm your present, yo.' Right?"

"That sounds nothing like me."

"You say shit like that all the time."

"I never say 'yo.'" Except when he's doing it on purpose to mock Jesse.

"But you're sappy," Jesse says with a grin. Fuck, does he know about the icing? "And you're a pretty awesome present anyway, so..." He shrugs, he sits near the water's edge so the tide can lap at his feet.

"Is that all I had to do?" Walt teases. The sun's beginning to peek over the horizon. Jesse reaches for Walt's hand, tugging at it like he wants Walt to join him here. Walt can take a hint; he sits behind him so Jesse can lean back against the weight of him, nestled between Walt's legs. "I wish I hadn't bought your presents on sale. Now I can't return them."

"Whoa, don't get crazy."

Walt tilts his head to breathe in the scent of Jesse's hair. He'll never understand how Jesse smells so good; when Skyler smoked, the smell seemed to seep into her hair, her clothes, her pores. He hated how the stench of cigarettes tainted the aroma of her perfume and shampoo and lotions. Is he fooling himself to think Jesse's immune from it, or has Walt simply grown accustomed to the smell?

He doesn't much care.

Walt closes his weary eyes and dozes off for a bit, because the next thing he knows it's brighter out than it was before. The sky's going through a metamorphosis of colors as the sun rises among the gauzy clouds. Then Jesse says softly, "This is an awesome birthday already though."

"You think so?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I didn't think I'd make it this far, y'know?"

Walt knows. This time last year Walt was facing down a death sentence. Now, he's never felt more alive. And Jesse... God, Jesse's endured the worst of it, dealt with the brunt of all Walt's bad decisions. Whether or not he's come out better for it is anybody's guess, but Jesse seems happy enough to be here.

Jesse turns so he can look at Walt. "You kinda saved my life, I guess."

The words punch a hole through Walt's chest and leave him stunned. Because nothing Walt's done over the past year seems like anything in the realm of life-saving. Walt feels like he's  _doomed_  Jesse. Is it possible the truth curved into the shape of a lie through Walt's refusal to see himself as anything other than poison?

Because looking at Jesse now, Walt feels the truth resonate deep within him: Jesse loves him. Maybe it's forever, maybe it isn't, but it's  _real_ , and that's all Walt could ever ask for.

Walt brings his mouth to the shell of Jesse's ear and murmurs, "I know you saved mine."

_It is love that asks, that seeks, that knocks, that finds, and that is faithful to what it finds._

~ Augustine of Hippo


End file.
